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Fragment 26

And the man of God said, Where fell it? and he shewed...

And the man1 of God said,2 Where fell it? and he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick and cast it in thither and the iron did float. This was a token of the lifting up of souls through the wood, whereon He suffered who is able to lift up souls which follow His upward Ascent. Whereof that too was an indication, viz., that many souls ascended and were seen in their bodies,3 along with the descent of the Holy Soul of Christ. For as wood most light went under water,4 iron most weighty did float, so by the union of God the Word which was united to flesh by a Natural and Personal Union, the weighty and earthy was borne up by the Divine Nature into the heavens, immortalised after the Resurrection.


  1. x This was published from a Ms. in the Library at Paris: the Leipzig Catena has it (ii. 851) but its Editor took it not out of his Mss., but out of the published Edition of S. Irenæus. 

  2. 2 Kings 6:6. 

  3. S. Matth. 27:52, 53. 

  4. cf. supra p. 491.