vision of the river issuing from the east gate of the temple in the new Jerusalem, Ez 47:1-14;
468 The Literal Meaning of Genesis which God used to make himself present to people and their bodily senses, that he said: Show yourselfto me (Ex 33:13.18). Nor was it some image of a bodily reality, like whatJohn saw in the spirit and then asked what it was, and was given the answer, "It is a city," or "They are peoples" or something else, when he saw a beast or a woman or waters or something of that sort.6 No, but /know, Paul said, a man snatched up to the third heaven.
10. But if he had wanted to give the name of a heaven to some spiritual image similar to a bodily one, then it would have also been in an image of his own body that he was snatched up and ascended there. So in this way he would also be calling it his own body though it wasjust an image of his body, as he called that a heaven though it was just an image of a heaven. In that case he would not be bothering to distinguish between what he knew and what he did not, saying, that is, that he knew a man snatched up to the third heaven, but did not know whether it was in the body or out of the body, but would simply be giving an account of his vision of those things, and calling them by the name of the things of which they were the likenesses. We too, after all, when giving an account of ourdreams or of some revelation in them, say, "I saw a mountain, l saw a river, l saw three men"7 and so on, giving the images the names of the things they represent. The apostle, though, "This," he said, "l know, that l do not know."
1 1. But if each was an appearance to him in the imagination, then each is equally known and equally unknown; while if the heaven's was a proper appear ance—and is therefore known—how could the appearance of that man's body just be in the imagination?
12. 1 mean, if a bodily, material heaven was being seen, why did it elude him whether it was being seen with bodily eyes? While if it was uncertain whether it was being seen with the eyes of the body or with the spirit—and that is why it says, whether in the body or out of the body l do not know—how was it not also uncertain whether the bodily, material heaven was really being seen, or was being shown him in his imagination?
Again, if it was an incorporeal substance that was being seen, not in some bodily image, but in the way that justice, wisdom and anything of that sort is seen, and this is what that heaven was, then this too is evident enough, that anything of that sort cannot be seen with the eyes of this body. And accordingly, if he knew that it was something of that sort which he saw, he could have had no doubts that he did not see it by means of the body. / know, he says, a man in
Christfourteen years ago. Let nobody who believes me have any doubt that l know this ; but whether in the body orout of the body 1do not know, Godknows.
6. SeeRv 17:1-18. 7. Allusions, 1 suggest, lo Nebuchadnezzar's dream, told him by Daniel, Dn 2:34-35; to Ezekiel's vision of the river issuing from the east gate of the temple in the new Jerusalem, Ez 47:1-14; and to the Lord appearing to Abraham in the guise of three men, Gn 18:1-15.