anchors 241–250

95. The evil and destructive kingdom of the devil - typified by kingdom of the Assyrians (cf. 2 Kgs.18:11) - has organized a war against virtue and spiritual knowledge, plotting to pervert the soul through the soul’s innate powers. First it stimulates the soul’s desire to develop an appetite for what is contrary to nature, and persuades it to prefer sensible to intelligible things. Then it rouses the soul’s incensive power to struggle with all its might in order to [00242] Second Century attain the sensible object which it desires. Finally it teaches the soul’s intelligence how to contrive opportunities for sensual pleasure. [00243] 96. In His supreme goodness God has not only made the divine and incorporeal essences of noetic realities images of His unutterable glory, each in its own way reflecting, in so far as this is granted, the supra-noetic splendor of His unapproachable beauty; He also permeates with echoes of His majesty things that are sensory and far inferior to noetic essences. These enable the human intellect, mounted upon them and carried above all visible things, to journey towards God and to attain the summit of blessedness. [00244] 97. Every intellect crowned with virtue and spiritual knowledge is appointed like the great Hezekiah to rule over Jerusalem (cf. 2 Kgs. 18:1-2) - that is to say, over the state in which one beholds only peace and which is free from all passions. For Jerusalem means ‘vision of peace’. Through the forms which fill creation, such an intellect has the whole of creation under its sovereignty. Through the intellect creation offers as gifts to God the spiritual principles of knowledge that lie within it; and as gifts to the intellect it presents the qualities conducive to virtue which exist within it in accordance with the law of nature. Both through the principles of spiritual knowledge and through the qualities of virtue creation honors the intellect so admirably fitted to make right use of both - the philosophic intellect perfected in both intelligence and action through contemplation and the practice of the ascetic life. [00245] 98. He who has attained the summit of virtue and spiritual knowledge through the practice of the ascetic life and contemplation naturally transcends, every carnal and reprehensible passion; he also surmounts the condition of so-called natural bodies, that is, of beings subject to generation and corruption. In short, through contemplation he gains spiritual knowledge of the inner essences of all sensible forms and passes beyond them, raising his intellect to the divine realities that are akin to it. [00246] 99. When, thanks to the hardships you have undergone in the practice of the virtues, you are appointed to dwell in the state of dispassion as though in Jerusalem and, freed from all the disturbance of sin, you practice, speak, hear and think nothing but peace; and when, after that, you have received through natural contemplation an understanding of the nature of visible things - a nature which [00247] Second Century offers through you as gifts to the Lord the divine essences dwelling within it, and presents to you, as if presenting gifts to a king, the laws that lie within it - then you are ‘magnified in sight of all nations’ (2 Chr. 32:23). For you are now above all things: through the practice of the virtues you have risen above natural bodies and the passions of the flesh, and through contemplation you have passed beyond the indwelling spiritual essences and qualities of alt sensible forms. [00248] 100. Practical philosophy sets above the passions the man who practices the virtues. Contemplation establishes above visible things the man who attains spiritual knowledge, raising his intellect to the noetic realities akin to it. [00249] Third Century [00250] 1. The person who combines spiritual knowledge with the practice of the virtues and practice of the virtues with spiritual knowledge is a throne and a footstool of God (cf. Isa. 66:1) - a throne because of his spiritual knowledge and a footstool because of his ascetic practice. And. the human intellect, purified of all material images and occupied or, rather, adorned with the divine principles of the noetic world, is a heaven itself.