54. But in what way, or by doing what?
55. Let us see what they do, what life they lead.
56. If we live that life (and indeed we can), we will be equal to their lot.
57. The Seraph burns with the fire of love; the Cherub shines with the splendor of intelligence; the Throne stands in the steadfastness of judgment.
58. Therefore if we, being dedicated to an active life, undertake the care of inferior things with proper consideration of their worth, we will be strengthened by the steadfast solidity of the Thrones.
59. If we, being unburdened by actions, meditate on the Creator in His creation and on creation in the Creator, we will be engaged in the tranquillity of contemplation; we will shine on all sides with Cherubic light.
60. If we burn for the Creator alone, with charity, with its all-consuming fire, we will burst into flame in the likeness of the Seraphim1.
61. Upon the Throne, that is upon the just judge, sits God, the Judge of all time.
62. Over the Cherub, that is over the contemplator, He flies and, almost brooding over him2, imbues him with warmth.
63. Indeed, the Spirit of the Lord is carried over the waters, the waters that, it is said, are above the Heavens and that praise God in the pre-dawn hymns in the book of Job3.
64. And the Seraph, that is the lover, is in God and God is in him; and God and he are one.
65. Great is the power of the Thrones that we may reach by judging; supreme is the height of the Seraphim that we may reach by loving.
§ 12 The Angels As Inspiration to Man
66. And yet in what manner can anyone either judge or love things unknown?
67. Moses loved the Lord Whom he saw and, as a judge, he administered to the people the things that he earlier saw on the mountain as a contemplator.
68. Hence the Cherub, located in the middle position, prepares us for the Seraphic fire and likewise illuminates us for the judgment of the Thrones.
69. This is the bond of the First Minds, the order of Pallas, the guardian of contemplative philosophy. First we must emulate him, thirst after him and to the same degree understand him in order that we may be raised to the heights of love and descend well taught and prepared to the duties of action.
70. And so it is valuable, if our life is to be modeled on the example of the Cherubs' life, to have before our eyes an idea of what their life is and what it is like, what their actions are and what works are theirs.
71. Because we, who are flesh and know only earthly things, are not permitted to follow their model of our own accord, let us consult the ancient Fathers for they, to whom these things were common and well known, can provide us with certain and abundant evidence of its nature.
72. Let us inquire of the apostle Paul, the chosen vessel, about the activities of the Cherubic hosts that he saw when raised up to the third heaven.
73. He will certainly answer, according to the interpretation of Dionysius, that they are cleansed, then illuminated and afterwards are perfected.
§ 13 The Preparation of the Soul
74. We, emulating the Cherubic life on Earth, curbing the drive of the emotions through moral science, dispersing the darkness of reason through dialectic (as if washing away the squalor of ignorance and vices), therefore purge our souls lest our emotions run amok or our reason imprudently run off course at any time.
75. Then well we imbue our purified and prepared soul with the light of natural philosophy so that afterwards we may perfect it with the knowledge of divine things.
§ 14 Jacob's Ladder
76. And lest our Fathers be enough for us, let us consult Jacob the patriarch whose image shines, chiseled in the dwelling place of glory.
77. The most wise father, asleep in the lower world and awake in the higher, will illumine us4.
78. But he will teach us through a figure (in this way all things were known to them) that there is a ladder which stretches from the lowest earth to the highest Heavens and that is marked by a series of many rungs. God is at its height and the contemplative angels move up and down it in turns.
§ 15 Our Approach to Jacob's Ladder
79. So, if we are to carry out these things in our efforts to imitate the angelic life, who, I ask, will dare to touch the Ladder of God, either with an unclean foot or with unwashed hands?
80. As the mysteries have it, it is unlawful to touch the clean with the unclean.
81. But what feet are these?
82. What hands?
83. To be sure, the foot of the soul is that part which is most despicable, that which leans upon matter as if on earthly soil; it is the faculty, I say, that feeds and nourishes, I say, the kindling wood of lust and the teacher of sensual weakness5.
84. And why not call the hands of the soul its irascible part, that which fights on behalf of desire, battles for it and like a plunderer takes away in broad daylight and the public arena the things that desire, resting in the shade, then devours?
85. These hands, these feet, are the entire sensual part of the body in which resides the attraction that holds the soul back, as they say, obtorto collo. Let us wash them in moral philosophy like in a flowing river lest we be held back from the ladder as wicked and unclean.
86. And yet not even this will be enough if we wish to be companions to the angels who hasten up and down Jacob's ladder unless we are first well prepared and instructed to be promoted from step to step, to wheel away nowhere from the course of the ladder, and to encounter the reciprocal movements.
87. Once we, inspired by the Cherubic spirit, have reached this point through the art of speaking or of reasoning, that is, philosophizing according to the grades of Nature, penetrating the whole from the center to the center, we will then descend, dashing the one into many with Titanic force like Osiris, and ascend, drawing together with Apollonian force the many into one like Osiris' limbs6 until at last, resting in the bosom of the Father Who is at the top of the ladder, we will be made perfect in theological bliss.
§ 16 Peace and the Dual Nature of the Soul
88. And let us inquire with just Job, who entered into a pact of life with the God of life before he was brought into being7, as to what God the Highest desires among those tens of hundreds of thousands who are there present before Him: he will certainly answer peace, in accordance with that which is written in Job: «He who makes peace in the heavens».
89. And since the middle order interprets the precepts of the highest order for the lower ones, let now Empedocles the philosopher interpret for us the words of Job the theologian.
90. Empedocles, as his songs attest, presents to us through the symbols of conflict and friendship, or of war and peace, the dual nature that is set in our souls: one of them lifts us upwards to the heavens and the other drags us down into the depths.
91. In these songs he deplores being tossed into the depths, driven by conflict and discord like a madman and banished from the gods8.
§ 17 Theology As Succor for the Soul Fraught with Strife
92. Manifold indeed, Oh Fathers, is the discord in us; we grave internal, more than civil, wars in our home.
93. They are such that, if we desire them not, if we yearn after that peace which will lift us up and set us among God's most exalted ones, only moral philosophy will be able to still the troubles within us and bring us calm. If in our inner self we greatly desire above all else a truce from our enemies, we will beat down the unbridled stampede of the manifold beast, the aggression, ire and arrogance of the lion9.
94. Then, if thinking rightly, we yearn for the safety of perpetual peace for ourselves, it will come and liberally satisfy our desires; indeed, both beasts having been sacrificed like a stuck sow10, it will ratify an everlasting pact of the most holy peace between the flesh and the spirit.
95. Dialectic will calm the tumults of reason agitated and tossed about between the contradictions of speech and the captiousness of syllogism.
96. Natural philosophy will allay the differences of opinion and disagreements which from all sides vex, perplex and afflict our restless soul.
97. But it will bring harmony in such a way as to remind us that nature is the offspring of war, as Heraclitus said, and for this reason it is called by Homer «contention».
98. For this reason it is said that in philosophy true rest and stable peace cannot reveal themselves to us alone, that this is the duty and privilege of its mistress, that is, of the most holy theology.
99. She will show us the way to this peace and like a companion will lead us. Seeing us hurrying along from afar, she will call out, «Come to me, you who exert yourselves in vain; come and I will restore you; come to me and I will give you that peace which the world and nature cannot give to you».
§ 18 The Soul's Search for Peace and Its Union with God
100. So gently called, so kindly invited, we will then fly away into the embrace of the most blessed Mother like terrestrial Mercuries with winged feet; thoroughly will we enjoy the longed-for peace. This is that most holy peace, the indissoluble bond, the harmonious friendship in which all souls, in one mind, a Mind that is above all minds, are not only in agreement but indeed, in a certain ineffable way, inwardly become one11.
101. This is that friendship which the Pythagoreans call the end of all philosophy, that peace which God makes in His heavens, which the angels who came down to earth announced to men of good will so that these men would, ascending to heaven, be transformed by it into angels.
102. Let us desire this peace for our friends, for our times; let us desire it for whatever home we enter. Let us desire it for our soul so that in it may be made a house of the Lord, so that, after casting off its impurities through moral philosophy and dialectic, our soul may adorn itself with multi-faceted philosophy, as if with royal magnificence, may crown the heights of her doors with the garlands of theology, and finally so that the King of Glory may descend, together with the Father, to make a home in it.
103. If our soul shows herself to be worthy of such a Guest (for immense is His Clemency) clad in gold, like a wedding toga, surrounded by a diverse variety of sciences, she will receive Him not as a Guest but as a Bridegroom. She will wish to be separated from her people so as not to be separated from Him. Having forgotten her own father's home, indeed, having forgotten herself, she will wish to die in herself that she may live in her Spouse in Whose sight the death of His saints is truly precious. This is the death, I say, if one must call that plenitude of life death, whose contemplation is, according to the sages, the study of philosophy12.
§ 19 Moses' Allegory of the Tabernacle
104. Let us take as an example Moses, himself just a bit inferior to the fountainlike fullness of sacrosanct and ineffable intelligence whose nectar inebriates the angels13.
105. We will hear the venerable Judge thus declare His laws to us who live in the empty solitude of this body: «Let those who are unclean and as yet in need of moral philosophy dwell with the masses outside the tabernacle in the open air while they purify themselves like the priests of Thessaly.
106. Let those who have already put their behavior in order and have been received into the sanctuary not let lay hands upon the sacred things but first, in the service of dialectic, let them serve the holy things of philosophy like diligent Levites.
107. Once they are allowed access to the holy things in the priesthood of philosophy, let them contemplate the multicolored aspect of the higher kingdom of God, that is, the divine, princely decoration, as well as the celestial candelabra adorned with seven lights. Let them behold the skins so that they, permitted at last into the recesses of the temple through the merits of theological sublimity, may rejoice in the glory of the Divinity without any veil of a likeness coming in between» 14.
108. These things Moses truly commands of us and in commanding instructs, incites and encourages so that through philosophy we may prepare for ourselves, while we are able, the path to the future celestial glory.