Perishing and the Light of Truth

There are more things symbolically under Moses. For this man carries the face of the law, and since the law is spoken toward intellect and is explicit, it is able to reach only those who approach according to letter and word alone; but covered by shadows and histories, it approaches those who have ascended beyond, delivering the spiritual things according to allegory without a covering. Even if Moses thus conceals certain things, the fault is not his, but of those who are not able to see his glory without a covering, since even Jesus is to be blamed for not making the mysteries manifest to all; for to those outside he spoke in parables (Matt 13:11). So also the evangelical word discourses unhiddenly to those within who have entered into the mystical intellect, making the clarity of the parables, saying to those entering into his house: 'to you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom' (Luke 8:10), but to those outside everything becomes as parables. Certainly, since it is laid out, he shows it; for this reason covering Moses, who has glory upon his face, since the understandings of those not such as to see him nakedly have been blinded. It appears through the whole chain of what is laid out that he calls the law Moses.

From these the myth of those who interrupt God's writing is overturned (2 Cor 3:14-17); for it is one thing to be covered at times by types and shadows, and at other times to be revealed without coverings, since we receive its revelation from the Lord's Spirit, being persuaded that the Lord's Spirit is liberty (2 Cor 3:17). He says that the devil is the god of this age (2 Cor 4:4), just as the demons of the Gentiles are gods, and the belly of the gluttons. Some sting into that in which God is, reading henceforth from their own beginning; the understandings of the unbelievers of this age have been blinded (1 Cor 2:8). Certainly they also say things that are refutable: if some are unbelievers of this age, other unbelievers who are not of it would be found. For every unbeliever is of this age; for no one surpassing it and being made worthy of the coming age has been blinded in understandings, but has having his eyes enlightened. I knew some clarifying the laid-out word, saying that the gospel is covered not for all the unbelieving; for neither while it is covered or naked is there an experience...

They said that those who are perishing are those who received the gospel but approached it without a covering, in which the gospel is hidden. Such were those hearing the words of Jesus in parables, where the perishing is placed upon them to show a change from one state to another; for those making progress are such, always becoming different from others. Therefore, they did not say that perishing exists as a mockery, but rather as the heavens perish, so we also perish the age; for these words of perishing are set for the one in progress who passes from quality to quality.

The present word has a reference to the passage 'not that we lord it over your faith' (2 Cor 4:5); for following that, it is said: 'not ourselves we preach, therefore we do not lord it over your faith; for we preach Jesus Christ Lord, and ourselves slaves of you through Christ.' So not we, but He himself lords it over our faith, accepting or judging you according to it. To these things is also joined the fact that God, who said light should shine out of darkness (2 Cor 4:6), is joined to us all, having an unveiled face, reflecting the glory of the Lord. But light shines out of darkness to the one coming from ignorance into the knowledge of truth; we say, therefore, that one from being ignorant and true is becoming a knower and one having been instructed. Regarding the darkness named as ignorance and malice which pre-empts men, God shone in the hearts an illumination of practical and intellectual virtue, so that they might have the vision of the glory of Christ in his face. And this is glory, either according to which they think about him, or glory according to which we know him having been glorified.

The humble words and the unadorned nature of the interpretation say 'potsherds' vessels (2 Cor 4:7). For if the preachers of the gospel were ambassadors of the truth according to human philosophy, it would have been suspected that men are held by salvation through human art and not from the power of God; but since those ministering are unlettered and laymen, the excess of the power of the treasure according to knowledge will be perceived to be from God and not from mortals. To this is consistent the fact that one is a layman in the word but not in the knowledge, and the fact that 'my word and my preaching are not in persuasions of wisdom's words' (1 Cor 2:4).