(2) come upon thee, whilst thou wert in a vineyard with Joseph, the spirit came out of the height and came to me in my house, like unto thee; and I had not known him, but I thought that thou wast he. And the spirit said unto me: Where is Jesus, my brother, that I meet with him?' And when he had said this unto me, I was at a loss and thought it was a phantom to try me. So I seized him and bound him to the foot of the bed in my house, until I went forth to you, to thee and Joseph in the field, and I found you on the vineyard, Joseph propping up the vineyard. It came to pass, therefore, when thou didst hear me speak the word unto Joseph, that thou didst understand the word, wert joyful and saidest: 'Where is he, that I may see him; else I await him in this place.' And it came to pass, when Joseph had heard thee say these words, that he was startled. And we went down together, entered the house and found the spirit bound to the bed. And we looked on thee and him and found thee like unto him. And he who was bound to the bed was unloosed; he took thee in his arms and kissed thee, and thou also didst kiss him. Ye became one. "This then is the word and its solution. 'Grace' is the spirit which hath come down out of the height through the First Mystery, for it hath had mercy on the race of men and sent its spirit that he should forgive the sins of the whole world, and they should receive the mysteries and inherit the Light-kingdom. 'Truth' on the other hand is the power which hath sojourned with me. When it had come forth out of Barbēlō,

(2) When Joseph was taken, his father Jacob lost his sight because of the tears of blood that flowed from his eyes. The name of Joseph was always on his lips. At last the Angel Gabriel went to him and said: ' If ever again you utter the

word ''Joseph'' I will strike your name from the roll of prophets and messengers.' When Jacob received this message from God the name of Joseph was lifted from his tongue, but he did not cease to repeat it in his heart. One night he saw Joseph in a dream, and would have called to him, but remembering God's command, he beat his breast and heaved a sad sigh from his immaculate heart. Then Gabriel came: ' God says that although you have not pronounced the name "Joseph" with your tongue, you have heaved a sigh, and thus destroyed all the effect of your repentance.'

(2) As soon as I was free from all those shades Who only prayed that some one else may pray, So as to hasten their becoming holy, Began I: "It appears that thou deniest, O light of mine, expressly in some text, That orison can bend decree of Heaven; And ne'ertheless these people pray for this. Might then their expectation bootless be? Or is to me thy saying not quite clear?" And he to me: "My writing is explicit, And not fallacious is the hope of these, If with sane intellect 'tis well regarded; For top of judgment doth not vail itself, Because the fire of love fulfils at once What he must satisfy who here installs him. And there, where I affirmed that proposition, Defect was not amended by a prayer, Because the prayer from God was separate. Verily, in so deep a questioning Do not decide, unless she tell it thee, Who light 'twixt truth and intellect shall be. I know not if thou understand; I speak Of Beatrice; her shalt thou see above, Smiling and happy, on this mountain's top."

(76) But when his love was extinguished, then the animated or soulish spirit could no more reach into the heart of God, and so his attempt was in vain; but he raved and raged in nature, that is, in the seventh qualifying or fountain spirit of God.

(40) And the Lord gave Joseph favour and mercy in the eyes of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh said unto his servants : " We shall not find such a wise and discreet man as this man, for the spirit of the Lord is with him."

(133) Viz. God his Creator qualifieth or operateth very meekly, lovingly and joyfully, and one qualifying or fountain spirit of God always loveth the other, and infecteth itself with the other, and always helpeth the other to image, form and frame all in the heavenly pomp.

(126) When the king was thus incorporated or compacted together, as one comprehending his whole kingdom, then instantly, the same hour, and in the same moment, when he was incorporated or compacted together, the birth of the Holy Trinity of God, which he had for a propriety in his body, rose up and generated itself without, distinct from the creature, in God. ["Understand, for a propriety in the liberty, not essentially, but as the fire shineth forth or gloweth through the iron that is flaming hot, and the iron remaineth iron still; or as the light replenisheth or filleth the darkness, the dark source or quality being changed into light, and so becometh joyful, and yet in the centre remaineth a darkness, which is understood to be nature; for a spirit is replenished only with the Majesty."]

(7) Nor prayer for inspiration me availed, By means of which in dreams and otherwise I called him back, so little did he heed them. So low he fell, that all appliances For his salvation were already short, Save showing him the people of perdition. For this I visited the gates of death, And unto him, who so far up has led him, My intercessions were with weeping borne. God's lofty fiat would be violated, If Lethe should be passed, and if such viands Should tasted be, withouten any scot Of penitence, that gushes forth in tears."

(11) But those who receive him to themselves with ignorance, the pleasures which are defiled prevail over them. It is those people who used to say; "God created members for our use, for us to grow in defilement, in order that we might enjoy ourselves." And they cause God to participate with them in deeds of this sort; and they are not steadfast upon the earth. Nor will they reach heaven, but [...] place will [...] four ... ... (3 lines unrecoverable) ... unquenchable ... ... (3 lines unrecoverable) ... word [...] upon the Jordan river, when he came to John at the time he was baptized. The Holy Spirit came down upon him as a dove [...] accept for ourselves that he was born of a virgin and he took flesh; he [...] having received power. Were we also begotten from a virginal state or conceived by the word? Rather, we have been born again by the word. Let us therefore strengthen ourselves as virgins in the [...].

(111) But he finds nothing in thy Gates but the Way of Falsehood, Bribery, Cunning, Subtilty, Lying, and Deceit, also Covetousness, and to wind himself about so under thy Yoke, that he may but live; and so himself murders his own poor Soul, under thy Yoke, and rends himself off thus from the Kingdom of God, and gives himself up to the Kingdom of this World, kneeling and praying before thy Beast, and honours thy proud Bride that rides upon thy Beast, as the Spirit of God in the Revelation of John witnesses.

(42) And Joseph devised a plan whereby he might learn their thoughts as to whether thoughts of peace prevailed amongst them, and he said to the steward who was over his house : " Fill all their sacks with food, and return their money unto them into their vessels, and my cup, the silver cup out of which I N 194 ?HE BOOK OF JUBILEES [chap, xlii drink, put it in the sack of the youngest, and send them away." Joseph finally tests his Brethren, and then makes himself known to them (xliii. -; cf. Gen. xliv., xlv.).

(5) When the man, out of love to God, has confessed, according to the instruction of his sponsor, his ungodliness, his ignorance of the really beautiful, his insufficiency for the life in God, and prays, through his holy mediation, to attain to God and Divine things, he (the Hierarch) testifies to him, that his approach ought to be entire, as to God Who is All Perfect, and without blemish; and when he has expounded to him fully the godly course of life, and has demanded of him, if he would thus live,--after his promise he places his right hand upon his head, and when he has sealed him, commands the priests to register the man and his sponsor.

(3) Whereat I moved mine eyes, and I beheld In rear of Mary, and upon that side Where he was standing who conducted me, Another story on the rock imposed; Wherefore I passed Virgilius and drew near, So that before mine eyes it might be set. There sculptured in the self-same marble were The cart and oxen, drawing the holy ark, Wherefore one dreads an office not appointed. People appeared in front, and all of them In seven choirs divided, of two senses Made one say "No," the other, "Yes, they sing." Likewise unto the smoke of the frankincense, Which there was imaged forth, the eyes and nose Were in the yes and no discordant made. Preceded there the vessel benedight, Dancing with girded loins, the humble Psalmist, And more and less than King was he in this. Opposite, represented at the window Of a great palace, Michal looked upon him, Even as a woman scornful and afflicted. I moved my feet from where I had been standing, To examine near at hand another story, Which after Michal glimmered white upon me.

(1) I had already from those shades departed, And followed in the footsteps of my Guide, When from behind, pointing his finger at me, One shouted: "See, it seems as if shone not The sunshine on the left of him below, And like one living seems he to conduct him." Mine eyes I turned at utterance of these words, And saw them watching with astonishment But me, but me, and the light which was broken! "Why doth thy mind so occupy itself," The Master said, "that thou thy pace dost slacken? What matters it to thee what here is whispered? Come after me, and let the people talk; Stand like a steadfast tower, that never wags Its top for all the blowing of the winds; For evermore the man in whom is springing Thought upon thought, removes from him the mark, Because the force of one the other weakens." What could I say in answer but "I come"? I said it somewhat with that colour tinged Which makes a man of pardon sometimes worthy. Meanwhile along the mountain-side across Came people in advance of us a little, Singing the Miserere verse by verse.

(3) As is right, then, he never prefers the pleasant to the useful; not even if a beautiful woman were to entice him, when overtaken by circumstances, by wantonly urging him: since Joseph's master's wife was not able to seduce him from his stedfastness; but as she violently held his coat, divested himself of it, -becoming bare of sin, but clothed with seemliness of character. For if the eyes of the master - the Egyptian, I mean - saw not Joseph, yet those of the Almighty looked on. For we hear the voice, and see the bodily forms; but God scrutinizes the thing itself, from which the speaking and the looking proceed.

(4) Envoy and servant sooth he seemed of Christ, For the first love made manifest in him Was the first counsel that was given by Christ. Silent and wakeful many a time was he Discovered by his nurse upon the ground, As if he would have said, 'For this I came.' O thou his father, Felix verily! O thou his mother, verily Joanna, If this, interpreted, means as is said! Not for the world which people toil for now In following Ostiense and Taddeo, But through his longing after the true manna, He in short time became so great a teacher, That he began to go about the vineyard, Which fadeth soon, if faithless be the dresser; And of the See, (that once was more benignant Unto the righteous poor, not through itself, But him who sits there and degenerates,) Not to dispense or two or three for six, Not any fortune of first vacancy, 'Non decimas quae sunt pauperum Dei,' He asked for, but against the errant world Permission to do battle for the seed, Of which these four and twenty plants surround thee.

(12) But, inasmuch as the Divine Being is source of sacred order, within which the holy Minds regulate themselves, he, who recurs to the proper view of Nature, will see his proper self in what he was originally, and will acquire this, as the first holy gift, from his recovery to the light. Now he, who has well looked upon his own proper condition with unbiassed eyes, will depart from the gloomy recesses of ignorance, but being imperfect he will not, of his own accord, at once desire the most perfect union and participation of God, but little by little will be carried orderly and reverently through things present to things more forward, and through these to things foremost, and when perfected, to the supremely Divine summit. An illustration of this decorous and sacred order is the modesty of the proselyte, and his prudence in his own affairs in having the sponsor as leader of the way to the Hierarch. The Divine Blessedness receives the man, thus conducted, into communion with Itself, and imparts to him the proper light as a kind of sign, making him godly and sharer of the inheritance of the godly, and sacred ordering; of which things the Hierarch's seal, given to the proselyte, and the saving enrolment of the priests are a sacred symbol, registering him amongst those who are being saved, and placing in the sacred memorials, beside himself also his sponsor,--the one indeed, as a true lover of the life-giving way to truth and a companion of a godly guide, and the other, as an unerring conductor of his follower by the Divinely-taught directions.

(77) But behold! it is not I that have made way for this, but thy desire and highly raised lofty lust has moved the Deity to reveal to thee the desire of thy heart, in the highest simplicity in the greatest depth, that it may be a witness against thee, and a denunciation of the earnest severe day of God.

(1) Another bird said to the Hoopoe: ' I am effeminate, and can only hop from one branch to another. Sometimes I am wanton and dissolute, at other times I am abstinent. Sometimes my desires drag me to the taverns, sometimes my spirit draws me to prayer. Sometimes, in spite of myself, Satan leads me astray; at other times angels guide me back. Between these two I am in the pit and the prison; what can I do save lament, like Joseph?'

The Hoopoe replied: 'This happens to every man, according to his nature. If we had been guiltless from the beginning God would not have had to send his messengers and prophets. Through obedience you can attain felicity. O you who loll in the sweating room of indolence and yet are full of idle wishes, while you continue to feed the dog of desire your nature is worse than that of an impotent hermaphrodite.'

(3) He, then, when with joy he has received, as the sheep upon his shoulders, the two men, and has first worshipped, glorifies with a mental thanksgiving and bodily prostration the One beneficent Source, from Which, those who are being called, are called, and those who are being saved, are saved.