and living with it, a sudden light, like that kindled by a coruscating fire, arising in the soul, feeds itself." Are not these statements like those of Zephaniah the prophet? "And the Spirit of the Lord took me, and brought me up to the fifth heaven, and I beheld angels called Lords; and their diadem was set on in the Holy Spirit; and each of them had a throne sevenfold brighter than the light of the rising sun; and they dwelt in temples of salvation, and hymned the ineffable, Most High God."[1]
CHAPTER XII.
GOD CANNOT BE EMBRACED IN WORDS OR BY THE MIND.
"For both is it a difficult task to discover the Father and Maker of this universe; and having found Him, it is impossible to declare Him to all. For this is by no means capable of expression, like the other subjects of instruction," says the truth-loving Plato. For he had heard right well that the all-wise Moses, ascending the mount for holy contemplation, to the summit of intellectual objects, necessarily commands that the whole people do not accompany him. And when the Scripture says, "Moses entered into the thick darkness where God was," this shows to those capable of understanding, that God is invisible and beyond expression by words. And "the darkness"—which, is in truth, the unbelief and ignorance of the multitude—obstructs the gleam of the truth. And again Orpheus, the theologian, aided from this quarter, says:
"One is perfect in himself, and all things are made the progeny of one,"
or, "are born;" for so also is it written. He adds:
"Him
No one of mortals has seen, but He sees all."
And he adds more clearly:
"Him see I not, for round about, a cloud
Has settled; for in mortal eyes are small,
And mortal pupils—only flesh and bones grow there."
To these statements the apostle will testify: "I know a man in Christ, caught up into the third heaven, and thence into
- ↑ From some apocryphal writing.
