Ownership, Stewardship, and the Field of the Mind

For I am the most foolish of all men, and there is no human wisdom in me. The Foolish One said this by way of the lack of human wisdom.

Who ascended into heaven and descended? 'No one has ascended into heaven above, except the Son of Man who descended from heaven' (John 3:13).

Who gathered the winds in a bosom? Who wetted water in a garment? Who grasped all the ends of the earth? By what faith or in what way did he gather those 'from the east and the west and the north and the sea' (Ezekiel 38:15) into the knowledge of God and have given to them a spiritual vision to deposit in the virtues? And in another way: Who through true knowledge hid false knowledge? Who deposited true knowledge in the virtues? Who 'from the east and the west and the north and the sea' (Ezekiel 38:15) gathered all the nations, making them dense with the virtues and depositing the heavenly water, the flowing from the spring of life?

Do not add to his words, so that he may not examine you and you become false; for by the law of the Lord, 'it is not permitted to add, and it is not permitted to take away' (Rev 22:18-19).

Make a vain word and a long false word far from me. Make a pseudonymous knowledge far from me.

So that, not being filled, I may not become false and say: 'Who sees me?' Or, being in need, I may steal and swear by the name of God. Lest, he says, being filled, a proud listener of knowledge I become and say: 'No one shall know my wisdom.' Lest, being filled with unapproachable knowledge, I appear to men as a liar, saying such things which those endowed with blood and flesh are not able to know.

And the following is also well-added: 'so that, not being in need, I may not steal and swear by the name of God'; for someone steals foreign theories so that he may fill his mind while starving. But this happened before the coming of the Savior; now Paul says: 'let him who steals steal no longer' (Eph 4:28), but rather let him work righteousness.

so that having acquired knowledge, one may share it with the one in need. For what indeed is that which is not ours, so that we, who have believed in Christ, should steal? For all things are ours, but we belong to Christ, through whom all things came to be, and Christ belongs to God (John 16:15).

He who steals knowledge is not the one taking from the one who previously possessed it, but the one who subtracts knowledge from a false name. For all those who have believed in Christ, receiving insights from the holy prophets and apostles, are not called thieves of others' insights, but rather heirs of ancestral goods.

Do not hand over a servant into the hands of a master, lest he curse you and you be destroyed. Flee, mind, lest you hand over yourself to evil again, if 'everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin' (1 John 3:8). And now, the one practicing sin is called sin by the devil.

But those who rebuke others will appear better; and a good blessing will come upon them. The good blessing is the intellectual one, which is distinguished from the sensory blessing.

Prepare your works for the exodus and prepare for the field. Our Lord in the Gospels named the world a field; but Solomon now has spoken of the field as the theory of the world. But the field in the Gospels is that of the existing composition of a human soul and body, for it is sensory; whereas the field indicated here is of the mind alone, being intellectual and understood from these words of the world, into which pure hearts enter.

And go after me and you will rebuild your house, 'for a house is built with wisdom' (Prov 24:3); 'but into a poorly-crafted soul wisdom will not enter.' If you leave him, he will become a wasteland and will wither and become abandoned; and the barriers of his stones will be dug up. A barrier is apatheia of the rational soul, established from the practical virtues.