The two kinds of eyes
Let us see, too, what he calls us to, so that we may hear from him in what way we shall know God. Here he thinks that no Christian can understand what he says, for he says: “Still, let them hear, if they can understand anything at all.” We must consider, then, what words of his he wants us to hear. The philosopher, who ought to teach us, rails at us instead; and whereas he ought to show his goodwill toward his hearers at the opening of his discourse, he calls “a cowardly race” those who go as far as death rather than renounce Christianity even in a word, and who are ready for every torment and every kind of death. He also says that we are “a body-loving race,” we who say, “Even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16), and who lay down the body for godliness so readily that a philosopher would not take off even his cloak as easily.
He says to us, then: “If you close off the senses and look up with the mind, and turn from the flesh and rouse the eye of the soul, only so will you see God.” And he thinks that this (I mean the teaching about two kinds of eyes), which he took from the Greeks, had not already been taught as philosophy among us. We must say that Moses, writing the account of the world’s making, presents man before the transgression as in one way seeing and in another not seeing. He was seeing, in what is said about the woman: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes to look at, and beautiful to contemplate” (Genesis 3:6). He was not seeing, not only in the serpent’s words to the woman, spoken as though about blind eyes, “For God knew that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened” (Genesis 3:5), but also in the words “They ate, and the eyes of the two were opened” (Genesis 3:6–7).
So it was the eyes of sense that were “opened,” which they had done well to keep closed, so that they would not be distracted and hindered from seeing with the eye of the soul. But the eyes of the soul, which until then had been seeing and rejoicing in God and in his paradise, these, I think, they closed because of their sin. That is why our Saviour too, knowing that we have this twofold kind of eyes, says: “For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (John 9:39). By “those who do not see” he hints at the eyes of the soul, which the Word makes see; by “those who see,” at the eyes of the senses; and these the Word blinded, so that the soul might see without distraction what it ought.
In everyone, therefore, who lives as a Christian in the right way, the eye of the soul has been roused and the eye of sense has been closed; and in proportion to the rousing of the better eye and the closing of the eyes of sense, the God over all, and his Son, who is Word and Wisdom and all the rest, are understood and beheld by each.
Greek
Ἴδωμεν δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τίνα ἡμᾶς καλεῖ, ἵν᾿ αὐτοῦ ἀκούσωμεν. τίνι τρόπῳ γνωσόμεθα τὸν θεόν· ἐφ᾿ οἷς οἴεται μηδένα Χριστιανῶν ἐπαΐειν δύνασθαι τῶν ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ λεγομένων, φησὶ γάρ· ὅμως δ᾿ οὖν ἀκουσάτωσαν. εἴ τι καὶ ἐπαΐειν δύνανται. τίνων οὖν ἡμᾶς ἀκούειν ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ λεγομένων βούλεται, κατανοητέον. ὁ φιλόσοφος. δέον διδάσκειν ἡμᾶς. ὁ δὲ διαλοιδορεῖται· καὶ δέον εὔνοιαν ἑαυτοῦ δεῖξαι ἐν τῷ προοιμίῳ τῶν λόγων τὴν πρὸς τοὺς ἀκούοντας, ὁ δέ φησι τοῖς ἕως θανάτου ἀποθνῄσκουσιν. ἵνα μὴ ἐξομόσωνται μηδὲ μέχρι φωνῆς τὸν χριστιανισμὸν. καὶ παρεσκευασμένοις πρὸς πᾶσαν αἰκίαν καὶ πάντα τρόπον θανάτου· ὡς δειλὸν γένος. λέγει δ᾿ ἡμᾶς εἶναι καὶ φιλοσώματον γένος. τοὺς φάσκοντας· „εἰ καὶ Χριστόν ποτε κατὰ σάρκα ἐγνώκαμεν. ἀλλὰ νῦν οὐκέτι γινώσκομεν“ καὶ οὕτω προχείρως ὑπὲρ εὐσεβείας τιθέντας τὸ σῶμα. ὡς οὐδὲ τὸ ἱμάτιον ἀποδύσαιτ᾿ ἂν εὐχερῶς φιλόσοφος. φησὶν οὖν πρὸς ἡμᾶς ὅτι. ἐὰν αἰσθήσεσι μύσαντες ἀναβλέψητε νῷ καὶ σαρκὸς ἀποστραφέντες ὀφθαλμὸν τὸν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐγείρητε, μόνως οὕτως τὸν θεὸν ὄψεσθε. καὶ οἴεται αὐτὰ (λέγω δὴ τὰ περὶ διττῶν ὀφθαλμῶν) ἀπὸ Ἑλλήνων λαβὼν μὴ προπεφιλοσοφῆσθαι παρ᾿ ἡμῖν. λεκτέον δ᾿ ὅτι Μωϋσῆς ἀναγράφων τὴν κοσμοποιΐαν εἰσάγει τὸν ἄνθρωπον πρὸ μὲν τῆς παραβάσεως πῇ μὲν βλέποντα πῇ δὲ μὴ βλέποντα, βλέποντα μὲν ἐν τῷ λέγεσθαι περὶ τῆς γυναικὸς ὅτι „εἶδεν ἡ γυνὴ ὅτι καλὸν τὸ ξύλον εἰς βρῶσιν. καὶ ὅτι ἀρεστὸν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἰδεῖν καὶ ὡραῖόν ἐστι τοῦ κατανοῆσαι,“ μὴ βλέποντα δὲ οὐ μόνον ἐν τῷ λέγεσθαι ὡς περὶ τυφλῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ ὄφεως τῇ γυναικὶ τὸ „ᾔδει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ὅτι ᾗ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ φάγητε ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, διανοιχθήσονται οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ὑμῶν,“ ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῷ „ἔφαγον. καὶ διηνοίχθησαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ τῶν δύο.“ „διηνοίχθησαν“ μὲν οὖν αὐτῶν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ τῆς αἰσθήσεως, οὓς καλῶς ἦσαν μύσαντες, ἵνα μὴ περισπώμενοι ἐμποδίζωνται βλέπειν τῷ τῆς ψυχῆς ὀφθαλμῷ· οὓς δὲ τέως εἶχον βλέποντας τῆς ψυχῆς ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ εὐφραινομένους ἐπὶ τῷ θεῷ καὶ τῷ παραδείσῳ αὐτοῦ, τούτους οἶμαι διὰ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἔμυσαν. ὅθεν καὶ ὁ σωτὴρ ἡμῶν, τὸ διττὸν τοῦτο τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἐπιστάμενος εἶδος ἐν ἡμῖν, φησὶ τό· „εἰς κρίμα ἐγὼ εἰς τὸν κόσμον τοῦτον εἰσῆλθον, ἵνα οἱ μὴ βλέποντες βλέπωσι καὶ οἱ βλέποντες τυφλοὶ γένωνται,“ μὴ βλέποντας μὲν αἰνιττόμενος τοὺς τῆς ψυχῆς ὀφθαλμοὺς, οὓς ὁ λόγος ποιεῖ βλέπειν, βλέποντας δὲ τοὺς τῶν αἰσθήσεων· τούτους δὲ ἐτύφλου ὁ λόγος. ἵνα ἀπερισπάστως ἡ ψυχὴ βλέπῃ ἃ δεῖ. παντὸς οὖν τοῦ κατὰ τρόπον χριστιανίζοντος ὁ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐγήγερται ὀφθαλμὸς καὶ ὁ τῆς αἰσθήσεως μέμυκε· καὶ ἀνάλογον τῇ ἐγέρσει τοῦ κρείττονος ὀφθαλμοῦ καὶ τῇ μύσει τῶν ὄψεων τῆς αἰσθήσεως νοεῖται καὶ θεωρεῖται ἑκάστῳ ὁ ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεὸς καὶ ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ, λόγος καὶ σοφία τυγχάνων καὶ τὰ λοιπά.