Letter 102

To Fabianus. The ruling faculty [the hegemonikon, the governing part of the soul] of the saints resembles a kind of writing-case, or a tablet, on which God inscribes those things which must be spoken to His people. It was said, at any rate, to the prophet Habakkuk: "Write the vision upon a tablet." For the saint, peering into his own understanding, and looking into himself, and being wholly gathered within, in some manner reads what has been inscribed by God upon his own understanding, and thus proclaims it to the people.

Ἔοικε τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν τῶν ἁγίων πυξίδι τινὶ, ἢ δέλτῳ, ἐν ᾗ καταγράφει ὁ Θεός· ἅπερ λεχθῆναι δέον τῷ λαῷ αὐτοῦ. Εἴρηται γοῦν τῷ προφήτῃ Ἀββακοὺμ· « Γράψον ὅρασιν ἐπὶ πυξίου. » Τῇ γὰρ ἑαυτοῦ διανοίᾳ ἐγκύπτων ὁ ἅγιος, καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ὁρῶν, καὶ ὅλως εἴσω συνεστραμμένος, οἷον ἐντυγχάνει τοῖς καταγραφεῖσιν ὑπὸ Θεοῦ ἐπὶ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ διάνοιαν, καὶ οὕτως ἐπαγγέλλει τῷ λαῷ.