2 Corinthians 12:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"Whether in the body, I do not know; or out of the body, I do not know; God knows; he was caught up to the third heaven." Notice his moderation. He admits that he does not know whether he was in the body or out of the body when he was caught up. The third heaven should be understood as follows. Scripture calls the air heaven, as in the expressions "birds of heaven" and "dew of heaven." This is the first heaven. It also calls the firmament heaven. It says: "God called the firmament heaven" (Gen 1:8). This is the second heaven. It also calls heaven that which was created together with the earth. Behold the third heaven.

Therefore I think that Paul called the outermost limit of the sensible world the third heaven. He divided the visible universe into three parts and, according to the custom of Scripture, called each division heaven.

For the word of Scripture, by a special usage of expressions, calls one heaven the limit of the grosser air, up to which clouds, winds, and the nature of high-flying birds rise. It speaks both of the clouds of heaven and of the birds of heaven. It does not simply call this heaven, but adds the name "firmament." For it says: "Let the waters bring forth creeping things, a living soul, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of heaven" (Gen 1:20).

Then it calls another heaven and firmament that which is discerned within the unmoving sphere, where the moving stars complete their course. For it says: "And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth" (Gen 1:16-17).

To anyone who has paid even a little attention to the structure of the universe, it is evident that Scripture calls firmament and heaven all that space in which the lights revolve in their upward motion. It also calls by these names the outermost limit of the sensible world, this boundary of the creature perceived by the mind.

Therefore the one who desired what is above speech and who did not look, as he commands us also, "at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things seen are temporal, but the things unseen are eternal" (2 Cor 4:18), was borne up by power wherever his desire carried him.

When he indicates that which was so desirable to him, instead of saying, "the man" who passed beyond the whole sensible creature and entered the sanctuary of the intelligible nature. "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 3:15), he designates this in the words of Scripture. He calls the end of these three divisions discerned in the universe the third heaven.

For he left the air behind him, passed through the courses of the stars that fill the middle region, and went beyond the upper vault of the ethereal boundaries. Being in the abiding intelligible nature, he saw the beauties of Paradise and heard what human nature cannot utter.

This, O man of God, is our answer to what your prudence has proposed to us. We have neither transformed the expressions of Scripture into allegory with a figurative meaning, nor left unexamined the objections raised against us.

As far as possible, taking the expression in its proper meaning, we have kept to the natural sequence in our survey of the names. By this we have shown, as far as possible, that there are no contradictions in what is self-consistent, even if it appears contradictory on superficial reading.

We have judged it needless to describe the rest that was accomplished during the six-day creation of the world. The lofty discourse of the teacher left nothing requiring investigation unexamined, except the formation of man. Having labored on this earlier in a separate book, we sent it to your perfection.

In that discourse and in the present one, we ask you and all readers not to think that we are contending with the zeal of the teacher. On the contrary, there we added, as far as possible, what was lacking in his work on the Hexaemeron by setting forth a discussion of man.

Here we have taken care to write this for those who require sequence in what is set forth in Scripture. Thus we may both preserve the literal meaning of what is written and reconcile the natural contemplation with the letter.

If anything in what has been said is insufficient, let your prudence and each of the readers complete what is lacking without any envy. The offering of the two widow's mites did not hinder the gift-bearing of the rich. Nor did those who brought Moses skins, wood, and hair for the tabernacle hinder those who offered gold, silver, and precious stones.

Therefore we also shall receive with love what we have brought, if it is accepted, even as hair. Only let it be laid in your purple robe, interwoven with gold, upon the word of the upper garment, whose name is "manifestation and truth," as Moses says (Lev 8:8).

So he prepared new vestments for the priest according to the command of God Himself. To Him belong glory and dominion, with the Only-begotten Son and the All-holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Thus they are many, though they appear to us as one. David explains that the heavens are many when he says: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands" (Ps 18:1). The Apostle says: "The heavens are the work of Your hands" (Heb 1:10). And in another place: "He ascended far above all the heavens" (Eph 4:10). He calls ineffable the words which he heard concerning the birth of the Son. He heard them, and they became pleasing to him. For this reason he both persisted and persecuted, that is, instructed, the Churches. Likewise, the Jewish priests and scribes stumbled over precisely this: how God could be born. "You are a man, and make Yourself God" (cf. Jn 10:33).

There he heard ineffable words, which "it is not lawful for a man"; the Apostle did not say "to hear," but "to utter." For if it were impossible for a man to hear them, how would he have heard them? The Apostle heard them, but did not dare to repeat them. Others say that the "words" are the realities themselves, because the Apostle saw the beauty of paradise, the choirs of the saints within it, and the all-harmonious voice of hymnody. The one who saw this knows all this exactly. But we shall pass to the interpretation of what follows in order.

They likened themselves to the holy apostles, confessed the dreams of their thoughts, and called them spiritual contemplations. This also applies to many heretics. That is, this comes close to Origen, Valentinus, the son of Dissan, Marcion, Manes, and the other ancient leaders of harmful heresies, which began from apostolic times and are found in places to this day. Finally, because certain people, corrupted in mind by demonic fantasy, wished to corrupt the teaching of the blessed apostles, the divine Apostle was compelled to bring to nothing the boasting of the heretics. They boasted in a shadow of activity shown to them by demons. Therefore with humility and great fear he describes his divine contemplation, attributing it to the person of another. For he says: "I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago; whether out of the body or in the body, I do not know, God knows; who was caught up into paradise and heard words which it is not lawful for a man to utter." Thus he says that he was caught up by rapture, and did not ascend voluntarily by his mind in contemplation to the third heaven. He wrote that he saw contemplations. He said that he heard words. But what the words were, or what the forms of the contemplations were, he could not write. For when the mind saw this by the spirit of revelations in its proper place, it did not receive a command to utter it in a place not proper for it. Even if he had wished to utter this, he could not have done so, because he saw it not with the bodily senses. What the mind receives through the bodily senses it can again explain through them in the bodily realm. But what it sensibly contemplates, hears, or feels within itself in the spiritual realm, it cannot recount when it returns to the body. It only remembers that it saw this, but cannot clearly tell how it saw it. By this the false writings called revelations are exposed. They were composed by the leaders of heresies, corrupted by demonic fantasy. They speak about dwellings on the firmament into which they introduce the mind for self-willed instruction. They speak about ascents of the mind into heaven, about places for those separated off at the Judgment, about the many-formed appearances of the heavenly Powers, and about their activity. All this is a shadow of a mind intoxicated by self-conceit and stupefied by demonic activity. For this reason blessed Paul, with one word, shut the door before every contemplation and carried its bolt inward into silence. There the mind, even if it could declare this, would not have received permission to do so. For he said that all contemplations which the tongue can reveal in the bodily realm are fantasies of the soul's thoughts, and not the action of grace.

The Apostle sees. He sees not by sense, yet with the same clarity with which sense perceives sensible things, and even more clearly. He also sees himself, abiding in ecstasy because of the ineffable sweetness of the vision. He is caught up not only above every thing and every material representation, but also above himself.

In this ecstasy he even forgets prayer to God. Saint Isaac spoke of this, having as co-witness the great and divine Gregory: "Purity of mind also will be prayer, which alone comes together with wonder at the light of the Holy Trinity." And again: "Above the purity of mind during prayer, the light of the Holy Trinity flashes forth, and the mind then rises above prayer. This should no longer be called prayer, but the birth of pure prayer sent by the Spirit. Then the mind does not pray with prayer, but in ecstasy is transported into the incomprehensible reality, where there is ignorance that is above knowledge."

That sweet vision, which caught up the mind, made it go out of everything, and turned it wholly toward itself, the saint sees as light sending revelation. Yet it is not a revelation of sensibly perceived bodies. It is limited neither upward, nor downward, nor in breadth.

He sees no boundaries at all to the light that he sees and that illumines him. It is as though there were a sun infinitely brighter and larger than everything in the world, and he himself stood in the midst, having become wholly sight. This is what it resembles.

The great Paul says that in his extraordinary rapture he did not know about himself what he was. Therefore he saw himself. How? By sense, by reasoning, by intellect? No. Having been caught up from them, he went out of these faculties. Thus he saw himself through the Spirit who accomplished that rapture.

And what was he himself, inaccessible to every natural faculty, or rather, detached from every natural faculty? Surely he was that with which he had been united, through which he knew himself, and by which he had been detached from all things.

For he had such union with the Light as even the angels cannot obtain unless they surpass themselves by the power of unifying grace. Thus he then became both Light and Spirit, with whom he was united and from whom he received union. He went out of all existing things and became light by grace, and non-being by transcendence. That is, he became above creation.

As the divine Maximus says, the one who is in God has left behind "all that comes after God." And again: "All works, names, and dignities that stand after God will be beneath those who will be in God by the activity of grace."

Yet, having become such, divine Paul in no way became a partaker of the divine essence. The essence of God is above even the non-being that transcends being. Not in vain is He "Super-God." There is a non-being by transcendence, spiritually seen by intellectual sense. Yet this is by no means the essence of God, but the glory and radiance inseparable from His nature. Through these He is united only with the worthy, angels and men.

Moreover, if both angels and men see God, are united with God, and hymn God in this way, then surely an angel, if he told of his supra-natural contemplation, would say exactly as Paul did: "I know an angel who saw. Whether he was even an angel, I do not know; God knows."

Is it the mark of a man who understands the boundlessness of the divine height, and the greatness to which the Lord in His love for mankind has drawn our nothingness, to call these contemplations of holy men sensible, imaginary, symbolic as sensible, and to compare them with human knowledge? They are known only to God and to those in whom He acts, as Gregory the Theologian says.

Only then did he reveal it, when he knew that through it he could free the faithful from the error of the false apostles. Notice here that divine Scripture says there are three heavens. One heaven is that in which birds fly, for it says, "the birds of heaven" (Ps 8:9). This heaven is the air, or what is called the atmosphere. Another heaven is called the firmament, for God also named the firmament heaven. Scripture says, "And God called the firmament heaven" (Gen 1:6, 8). The third heaven is the heaven of heaven, in which God dwells, as David testifies, saying: "Sing to God who ascended upon the heaven of heaven toward the east. The heaven of heaven belongs to the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men" (Ps 67:33-34; Ps 113:24). Although the phrase "to the third heaven," according to the meaning of the words, signifies that Paul did not enter the third heaven but stood at the approaches of the third heaven, nevertheless he says below that he was caught up into paradise, that is, into the place of God's glory. Therefore it is likely that "to the third heaven" also indicates that same place. He said "was caught up," not "ascended," in order to reveal both the swiftness and the wondrous character of his ascent to so great a height. But "whether in the body" means whether his soul was caught up together with his body, or "apart from the body," that is, whether the soul alone was caught up while the body remained on earth. Since Paul confessed that even he did not know this, but God alone knows it, how can we know it? It is therefore needless to investigate this. We know only that both are equally possible to almighty God.

Such ecstatic states were often repeated with the Apostle. Thus he himself relates that once, while praying in the temple of Jerusalem, he came into a trance and received a revelation from the Lord (Acts 22:17-18). The trance mentioned here could have been the same. But what the Apostle's state was at that time, he himself cannot define. "Whether in the body, I do not know; or apart from the body, I do not know." That is, whether his soul alone was caught up to heaven while his body remained asleep, or whether he was counted worthy of this rapture with his body. The very rapture indicates Paul's involuntary and unfree state. His ascent to the third heaven indicates his removal from everything earthly, ordinary, and human. In Holy Scripture a distinction is usually made between the visible heaven, the firmament or air through which birds fly and clouds move, and the starry heaven, the airless space in which the luminaries shine and which is called boundless. There is also the heaven of heavens, the invisible or spiritual heaven in which the bodiless spirits dwell and where the throne of God Himself is. Paul was caught up to this highest heaven. Since it is appointed for the life of blessed spirits and souls, as the earthly Paradise was once appointed, this heaven is also called Paradise.

Even so, nothing would have prevented him from saying, "I was caught up," instead of saying, "I know a man who was caught up." If he spoke thus, he surely had reasonable grounds. We can only conjecture that the course of his speech inclined him to this. Throughout this whole section, the Apostle is both compelled to say something extraordinary about himself and wishes to conceal himself. So here also, he speaks and yet seems not to speak.

Saint Chrysostom says: "Someone will say, If Paul wished to hide it, he should not have made even a hint, nor said anything of the kind. If he wished to speak, he should have spoken plainly. Why, then, did he neither speak plainly nor keep silence? So that by this also he might show how unwillingly he approaches the matter."

The words "in Christ" may be joined in different ways: "a man in Christ," "I know in Christ," or "caught up in Christ." A man in Christ is one who believes in Christ, is clothed in Christ, and has become one with Christ. If the one caught up had not been such, he would not have been caught up.

"I know in Christ," because if the Apostle is speaking of himself, then "I know a man" means the same as, "I experienced this." He experienced it not by his own powers, nor by any intellectual devices, but in Christ.

It is evident, however, that in this case "I know in Christ" merges with "caught up in Christ." The meaning will be this: as one joined to Christ and become one with Him, I was caught up by His power, according to His good pleasure, for His glory, and for the advancement of His work.

Oecumenius and Theophylact write: "He added, 'in Christ,' lest the false apostles, from whose boldness anything could be expected, should say that he was carried off by demons, like Simon Magus."

Fourteen years ago. If the epistle was written in the year 58, the vision falls in the year 44, the year of famine. Then Saint Paul and Barnabas carried alms to Jerusalem and, on returning from there, were set apart by the Spirit of God for preaching.

Thus this vision took place either in Jerusalem, when Saint Paul was there with the alms, or in Antioch, before his first departure to preach to the Gentiles. The rapture of which Saint Paul speaks in his address to the people, when they seized him in Jerusalem and wished to kill him, does not correspond to this in content (Acts 22:17). It occurred two or three years earlier, precisely when Saint Paul returned from Damascus to Jerusalem.

Why did the Apostle mention the time? Saint Chrysostom and all our interpreters explain it thus: "He also fixed the time, fourteen years before. He did not mention this without reason, but wished to show that, having kept silence for so long, he would not have spoken even now unless there had been great necessity. On the contrary, he would have kept silence if he had not seen the brethren perishing. And if Paul was such that, at the very beginning, when he did not yet have such merits, he was deemed worthy of a great revelation, consider what he became after fourteen years."

The Apostle wished to awaken such an inference in the minds of the Corinthians, as Oecumenius conjectures: "Since the false apostles seemed to be something great and were drawing everyone to themselves, the Apostle was compelled to show that he was far greater than they. He did this to persuade them to heed his words, not theirs. For this reason he suggests: if one who fourteen years earlier was deemed worthy of such revelations, what is he now after so many labors endured for Christ?"

"Whether in the body, I do not know; or whether out of the body, I do not know. God knows." He says, I cannot tell whether the soul alone was taken up to heaven while the body remained on earth, or whether the body too was taken there.

His attention was not occupied with this. It was wholly absorbed by what was seen and did not turn back upon itself. After the vision, the question could arise and probably did arise. Yet fourteen years passed, and it remained unresolved.

If this remained unresolved even for Saint Paul himself, then surely it is the kind of matter that cannot be resolved, or should not be resolved.

Saint Chrysostom says: "See how modest he is in everything. He speaks of one thing and confesses that he does not know another. He said that he was caught up. But whether in the body or out of the body, he says, I do not know. It would have been enough to speak of the rapture and keep silence about the rest, yet out of modesty he adds this also. What then? Were only the mind and soul caught up, while the body remained dead? Or was the body also caught up? This cannot be determined. If Paul himself, who was caught up and deemed worthy of so many ineffable revelations, does not know, much less can we know. That he was in Paradise he knows. That he was in the third heaven is not unknown to him. But how he was caught up he does not know clearly."

"Such a one was caught up to the third heaven." To say this, one had to see distinctly how the heavens are traversed, one after another: the second after the first, and the third after the second.

Since the whole vision was a vision of what the bodily eye does not see, these heavens cannot be defined by correspondence to anything visible above to the bodily eye, whether unaided or aided. These heavens are hidden, although to one capable of seeing they differ from one another. They contain different things and have different significance.

Within, or in the depth of, the world visible to us, another world is hidden, as real as this one. Whether it is spiritual or of subtle matter, God knows. But this is certain: in it dwell the angels and the saints.

According to the degrees of these latter are the degrees of the heavens. Since there are many such degrees, there are probably many heavens. The Apostle was caught up to the third heaven, but he does not say that it is the last. Besides, the meaning of his words is that he passed by two heavens and stopped at the third. Yet it is possible to pass not only two, but to skip dozens and stop at the twentieth.