From: ON THE CHERUBIM, THE FLAMING SWORD, AND CAIN
XIII. Thus then must the sacred instruction begin. Man and Woman, male and female of the human race, in the course of nature come together to hold intercourse for the procreation of children. But virtues whose offspring are so many and so perfect may not have to do with mortal man, yet if they receive not seed of generation from another they will never of themselves conceive. Who then is he that sows in them the good seed save the Father of all, that is God unbegotten and begetter of all things? He then sows, but the fruit of His sowing, the fruit which is His own, He bestows as a gift. For God begets nothing for Himself, for He is in want of nothing, but all for him who needs to receive.
I will give as a warrant for my words one that none can dispute, Moses the holiest of men. For he shows us Sarah conceiving at the time when God visited her in her solitude (Gen. xxi. 1), but when she brings forth it is not to the Author of her visitation, but to him who seeks to win wisdom, whose name is Abraham.
And even clearer is Moses' teaching of Leah, that God opened her womb (Gen. xxix. 31). Now to open the womb belongs to the husband. Yet when she conceived she brought forth not to God (for He is in Himself all-sufficing for Himself), but to him who endures toil to gain the good, even Jacob. Thus virtue receives the divine seed from the Creator, but brings forth to one of her own lovers, who is preferred above all others who seek her favour. Again Isaac the all-wise besought God, and through the power of Him who was thus besought Steadfastness or Rebecca became pregnant (Gen. xxv. 21). And without supplication or entreaty did Moses, when he took Zipporah the winged and soaring virtue, find her pregnant through no mortal agency (Exod. ii. 22).
XIV. These thoughts, ye initiated, whose ears are purified, receive into your souls as holy mysteries indeed and babble not of them to any of the profane. Rather as stewards guard the treasure in your own keeping, not where gold and silver, substances corruptible, are stored, but where lies that most beautiful of all possessions, the knowledge of the Cause and of virtue, and, besides these two, of the fruit which is engendered by them both. But, if ye meet with anyone of the initiated, press him closely, cling to him, lest knowing of some still newer secret he hide it from you; stay not till you have learnt its full lesson.
I myself was initiated under Moses the God-beloved into his greater mysteries, yet when I saw the prophet Jeremiah and knew him to be not only himself enlightened, but a worthy minister of the holy secrets, I was not slow to become his disciple. He out of his manifold inspiration gave forth an oracle spoken in the person of God to Virtue the all-peaceful. "Didst thou not call upon Me as thy house, thy father and the husband of thy virginity?" (Jer. iii. 4). Thus he implies clearly that God is a house, the incorporeal dwelling-place of incorporeal ideas, that He is the father of all things, for He begat them, and the husband of Wisdom, dropping the seed of happiness for the race of mortals into good and virgin soil. For it is meet that God should hold converse with the truly virgin nature, that which is undefiled and free from impure touch; but it is the opposite with us. For the union of human beings that is made for the procreation of children, turns virgins into women. But when God begins to consort with the soul, He makes what before was a woman into a virgin again, for He takes away the degenerate and emasculate passions which unmanned it and plants instead the native growth of unpolluted virtues. Thus He will not talk with Sarah till she has ceased from all that is after the manner of women (Gen. xviii. 11), and is ranked once more as a pure virgin.
Posted By: Steve Williams
Sunday, October 16th 2011 at 2:00PM
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