The General Epistle

...granted by the Creator of nature to the rational soul, through which [one obtains] eternal life.

But if someone says: "What are these things kept in letters, in twenty and in the word, written in dark ink on paper, from which it is possible for us to extract everlasting and eternal life?" Let the seeker of wisdom know: the letters are like the new storehouses of Joseph, which distribute grain for the life of men during the great famine. They are also granted to us in place of the unforgetfulness of the angels, in the place of constant remembrance. They are also keys of understanding, and like telescopes looking out upon the world, through which we contemplate and take pleasure in the heavens through earthly things. They are also storehouses of all the wisdom and knowledge of God.

Then, just as once, the earth, unadorned and unprepared, having received the command from the Creator, immediately caused every herb to spring forth at the command—in the twinkling of an eye—with multi-colored splendor and the various beauties of plants and flowers, the face of the earth was adorned for the amusement of the Creator and the filling of the first-created creatures. The earth itself brought forth fruit according to the Lord’s word. According to this parable, and with a passionate longing in our reading of the holy words—breathed into by the Spirit, from time to time, through the divine mysteries—according to the measure of the revelation from Him, for those men who are to step forth with wings, our unadorned and unprepared heart begins to rise from sins with repentance, having been broken by the plow, and it begins to blossom in the sprouting of unfading and flame-colored flowers, contemplating the things above where Christ sits. And from there, it flies up into fruitfulness, by the beautiful vision and the tasting of the sweetness of the apostolic perfections. As if [the soul] had the natural intellectual desire of the inner man as its own food, and performed [the work] with the outer act, and by that, changed from one [state] to another.

Then, truly, it is appropriate to say that the Holy Scriptures are like the new rods of Jacob, multi-colored rods, in which, through the multi-colored knowledge, the rational flock is led by the heavenly Shepherd...