The Deception of Manichaean Light and Paul's Visions

having sinned, because I did not receive the wages of the gospel. And you know that not only when traveling away from you did I refrain from taking anything, but also when present among your mother-church, having been lacking because the necessary things were missing, I have not become a burden to other churches by having fulfilled their need; for indeed the brothers coming to me from Macedonia were providing for the needs. And this boldness is being preserved for me toward all the churches of Achaia; and I will guard this intention, so that in everything I may be without weight, just as I have kept myself and will keep myself.

For we do not do this out of a love for it, but so that we might cut off every pretense of those desiring to find occasions for slander, so that even if I seem to be refusing to take something from someone, the deceivers might be found just like us; for we are not like those, but they will be found to be like us (2 Cor 11:12). But if it is true that they have spoken with boldness, they are found to seem like us; for we are proceeding with a true intention regarding the administration having been spoken, but they, by imitating, claim that the good is not such, but they only seem to be, desiring to be.

The true apostles are said to be workers without addition in your entreating therefore of the Lord of the harvest to send out workers, and also the worker is worthy of his food (2 Cor 11:13-15). But these, concerning whom I write, in one place are called deceitful workers, and in another letter they are named evil workers. They are transformed into apostles of Christ, not being such but deceiving by form alone, having the same disposition as the false prophets who, being wolves in thought, surround themselves with fleeces, so that they may be glorified as being sheep. Having said this about them, he shows that what has been said is not paradoxical; for if the cause of them being such happens to be—and this is the devil—he pretends to be an angel of light, while being of darkness, consequently those being led toward wandering with him transform themselves as to be received as pure, because they are ministers of righteousness. It is to be known that the transforming of Satan into an angel of light is said more abusively; for principally...

A transformation of bodies is accused of being bodies that are being exchanged. Rather, the present word indicates the light being shared, while the rest is full of darkness. If anyone hears that the one being transformed is an angel of light, let him not suppose him to be such in essence—for this glory is Manichaean and impious—for the devil is evil and darkness by his own nature, and just as by his own choice he pretends to be light in order to be thought to have virtue and knowledge. Even if he thus deceives some by transforming into the aforementioned things, the end is appropriate for those doing them, going out with the devil into the eternal fire as his servants.

The foolishness spoken here is not entirely such; for it is being accomplished economically, it is full of a most vigorous understanding. He gives this because, since many boast according to the flesh—'They are Hebrews, and Israelites, and the seed of Abraham; and I also' (2 Cor 11:22)—he precedes them in glory, that these things are spiritual (2 Cor 12:1-5).

He has come to report the God-sent visions and revelations that have existed, and while showing these to a great extent of divinity, he did not attribute them to himself, but as if reporting concerning another, arranging the boasts of weakness toward his own person. It is fitting, then, that he lifted up the indwelling vision to the man in Christ, in order to show that he was not worthy to be made such in any other way than having become in the Word of God, in wisdom, and in truth, and in sanctification; for all these things Christ is. This man in Christ was caught up to the third heaven and into paradise; whether in body or outside of this, I do not know. And one says that the written thing can be held in both ways: for Elijah was also caught up in a body, and Ambachum was taken up from Jerusalem to Babylon, carrying the body, having been moved by the counsel of an angel of God. Another says: just as someone walking upon the earth can have his citizenship in heaven, so also to sit with Christ in...