2 Corinthians 12:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

After mentioning dangers, temptations, plots, vexations, and shipwrecks, he now passes to another kind of praise, saying: "I know a man ... who fourteen years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or outside the body I do not know; God knows, was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man, whether in the body or outside the body I do not know; God knows, that he was caught up into Paradise and heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter. Of such a man I will boast; but of myself I will not boast" (vv. 2-5). This revelation is great. Nor was it the only one, but there were many others. Yet he mentions one out of many. That there were many, hear how he himself says it: "lest I be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations" (v. 7).

From the third heaven, he says, he was again caught up into Paradise. He was caught up so that in this respect also he should not be inferior to the other Apostles who lived with Christ. He uses the expression "into Paradise" because the name of this place was commonly known, and the Lord Himself promised it to the thief. He heard ineffable words which cannot be retold to those who think in a human way and have nothing spiritual. From this it is clear that the so-called "Revelation of Paul" is a spurious work. For how could it be otherwise, if the words mentioned were ineffable? Thus, according to the literal sense, the third heaven and Paradise are different places. In the figurative sense, however, these words may have one meaning, or they may not.

"I know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows, was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows, that he was caught up into Paradise and heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (2 Cor 12:2-4).

People usually ask first what the Apostle calls the third heaven in these words. Then they ask whether he wished Paradise to be understood by them, or whether, after being caught up to the third heaven, he was also caught up into Paradise, wherever that Paradise may be.

If so, being caught up to the third heaven would not mean the same thing as being caught up into Paradise. Rather, he was caught up first to the third heaven, and then into Paradise.

This question is so evenly balanced that, in my view, it can be resolved only if someone finds proof elsewhere. It must come not from these present words of the Apostle, but from other passages of Holy Scripture or from evident facts.

Such proof would show whether Paradise is located in the third heaven or is not located there. For it is unclear what the third heaven itself is, and how it should be understood, whether with reference to bodily or spiritual realities.

One could, of course, say that a man can be caught up bodily only into some bodily place. Yet the Apostle speaks in such a way that he does not know whether he was caught up in the body or outside the body.

Who, then, will dare to say of himself that he knows what the Apostle did not know? Nevertheless, if neither a spirit without the body can be caught up into bodily places, nor a body into spiritual places, then his very doubt compels us.

This is so, provided we grant that the Apostle is writing about himself. It compels us to understand in the same way the place to which he was caught up, namely, that one cannot determine and discern whether it is bodily or spiritual.

When bodily images appear to us in sleep or in ecstasy, we do not at all distinguish them from bodies themselves. Only after returning to the bodily senses do we realize that they were images, perceived not through the bodily senses.

Who, after awakening from sleep, does not immediately feel that he has seen dreams? Yet while he saw them in sleep, he could not distinguish them from the bodily sights of those who are awake.

I know, however, that it has happened to me. Therefore I do not doubt that it could, or can, happen to others also. While seeing something in sleep, I perceived that I was seeing it precisely in sleep.

Even while asleep I perceived and was firmly convinced that the images which commonly strike us in dreams by their incongruity were not true bodies, but appeared to me in sleep.

Yet at times I was also mistaken. For example, seeing my friend in a dream, I tried to convince him that the bodies we were seeing were not true bodies, but images of sleepers in a dream.

Yet he himself appeared to me in the same dream, just as they did. Even the fact that we were speaking together was not true. Rather, he, while asleep, was now seeing something else and did not know whether I was seeing the same thing.

Still, while I was striving to convince him that this was not he himself, I partly inclined to think that it was indeed he. Certainly I would not have spoken with him if I had been convinced that it was not he.

Thus the soul of one asleep, though wonderfully awake in a certain way, can be deceived by images of bodies as though they were the bodies themselves.

In ecstasy, however, I have had occasion to hear only one man. He was an unlearned man, scarcely able to express his perceptions, yet he knew that he was both awake and seeing something, though not with his eyes.

"My soul saw it," he said, as far as I can recall his own words, "not my eyes." But he did not know whether it was a body or a bodily image.

He was not such a person as could distinguish things of this kind. Yet he was so simple and sincere that I listened to him with the same trust as if I myself had seen what he said he saw.

Therefore, if Paul saw Paradise as the sheet descending from heaven appeared to Peter (Acts 10:11), or as John saw all that he describes in the Apocalypse (Rev 1:12), he could have been unsure.

The same applies to Ezekiel, who saw the plain with the bones of the dead and their resurrection (Ezek 37:1-10), or Isaiah, who saw God seated, the seraphim around Him, and the altar.

From that altar a coal was taken and cleansed the prophet's lips (Isa 6:1-7). If Paul saw in this way, it is clear that he could have been unsure whether he saw in the body or out of the body.

But if he saw outside the body, and not bodies, the question may be raised whether these were bodily images or a substance that presents no likeness of a body.

Such, for example, are God, the mind, the understanding or reason of man, and the virtues: prudence, righteousness, purity, love, piety, and all things of this kind.

We count, distinguish, and define these things mentally, while seeing neither their outline nor their color. We do not see how they sound, what odor they have, what taste in the mouth, or how they affect touch.

They are not felt as hot or cold, soft or hard, fine or rough. Rather, we contemplate them through a kind of sight, light, and representation of another order, far more excellent and certain than the rest.

Let us return again to the Apostle's words and examine them more carefully. First we must acknowledge as beyond doubt that the Apostle knew far more, and incomparably more fully than we do, what we are somehow trying to know about incorporeal nature.

If he knew that spiritual things can in no way be seen through the body, nor bodily things apart from the body, why did he not discern from what he saw how he could see it?

If he was certain that those things were spiritual, why was he not at the same time certain that he saw them outside the body? If he knew that they were bodily things, why did he not know that he could see them only through the body?

Whence, then, does his doubt arise, whether he saw them in the body or outside the body, unless he also doubted whether they were bodies or bodily images?

Let us therefore consider first what in his words he does not doubt. If afterward something remains in them about which he does doubt, perhaps the thing about which he does not doubt will resolve how he also doubts this.

"I know," he says, "a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows, was caught up to the third heaven."

Thus he knows a man in Christ who, fourteen years earlier, was caught up to the third heaven. He has no doubt whatever about this, and therefore neither should we doubt it.

But whether that man was caught up in the body or outside the body, he doubts. Since he doubts, who among us will dare to be certain of it?

Would it not be consistent for us also to doubt concerning the third heaven to which he says that man was caught up? If something real is indicated in the Apostle's words, then the third heaven is also indicated.

But if only some image of bodily things is given in them, then there was no third heaven. The reference to it would mean that the Apostle seemed to himself to have reached the first heaven.

Above it he again saw a heaven, and upon reaching that he saw another heaven. Having reached the last, he could say that he had been caught up to the third heaven.

Yet he does not doubt that the third heaven existed, to which he was caught up. Nor does he wish us to doubt it, for he begins by saying, "I know," and then continues his speech.

Therefore only someone who does not believe the Apostle can refuse to hold as true what the Apostle says he knows.

The Apostle, then, knows a man who was caught up to the third heaven. Therefore the heaven to which that man was caught up truly was the third heaven.

It was not some bodily sign which Moses distinguished both from the very substance of God and from the visible creature in which God appeared to human and bodily senses.

He did this so far as to say, "Show me Thyself" (Exod 33:13). Nor was it an image of a bodily thing, such as John saw in the spirit and asked what it meant.

He received the answer that it was a city, or peoples, or something else, when he saw a beast, a woman, waters, or something similar (Rev 13:1; 17:3). Rather, he says, "I know a man caught up to the third heaven."

If, however, he wished to call heaven a spiritual image resembling the bodily heaven, then his body also was only an image of a body in which he was caught up there.

Consequently he would have called an image of a body his body, just as he called an image of heaven heaven. In that case he would not have tried to distinguish what he knows from what he does not know.

He would not say that he knows a man caught up to the third heaven, yet does not know whether he was caught up in the body or outside the body. He would simply have recounted a vision.

He would have called what he saw by the names of the things he saw. We too, when recounting dreams or revelations in them, say, "I saw a mountain; I saw a river; I saw three men," and the like.

We assign to these images the names of the very things whose likeness we saw. But the Apostle says, "This I know, and this I do not know."

If both appeared to him figuratively, then he either knew both equally or did not know both equally. But if the heaven appeared to him in its own proper form, and therefore he knew it, how could the body of that man have appeared to him figuratively?

Indeed, if bodily heaven appeared to him, why did he conceal whether it appeared to him through bodily eyes? If he was unsure whether it appeared to him through bodily eyes or in the spirit, then he said, "in the body or outside the body, I do not know."

How, then, was he not also unsure whether true bodily heaven appeared to him, or whether it appeared to him figuratively?

On the other hand, if an incorporeal substance appeared to him, not in the image of any body, but as justice, wisdom, and the like are contemplated by us, and if such was the heaven, then nothing of this kind can be seen by bodily eyes.

Therefore, if he knew that he saw something of this kind, he could not doubt that he saw it not by means of the body. "I know," he says, "a man ... outside the body I do not know, God knows."

What, then, do you know, and what do you distinguish from what you do not know, lest you lead believers into error? "A man," he says, "caught up to the third heaven."

But this heaven was either body or spirit. If it was body and was visible to bodily eyes, why does he know that it exists, yet not know that it was seen by him in the body?

If it was spirit, then either it represented a bodily image, and in that case it is equally unknown whether it was a body and whether it was seen by him in the body.

Or else it was seen as wisdom is contemplated by the mind, that is, without any bodily images. In that case it is known that it could not have been seen by means of the body.

Therefore either both things are known, or both things are unknown, or what was seen is known while that by means of which it was seen is unknown.

For incorporeal nature clearly could not be seen by means of the body. Bodies, however, can be seen outside the body, but surely not as they are seen by means of the body.

They would be seen by an entirely different mode, if such a mode exists. Thus it would be astonishing if this mode could bring the Apostle into such error or doubt.

It would mean that, seeing a bodily heaven not with bodily eyes, he could say that he did not know whether he saw it in the body or outside the body.

It remains, therefore, to hold that the Apostle, who so carefully distinguishes what he knows from what he does not know, could not be mistaken.

When he was caught up into heaven, he himself did not know whether he was in the body, as the soul exists in the living body of a sleeping or waking man, or in ecstasy, withdrawn from the bodily senses.

Although many revelations were granted to him, he chose to speak of the one given to him on the road to Damascus. He spoke of it as something known to all and described not in his own name. "I know a man in Christ," he says, "fourteen years ago, whether he was in the body or outside the body, I do not know." That is, at the time when he was caught up. After the revelation he knew that his mind had been caught up, while his companions said that his body had not been moved anywhere. He was caught up to the third heaven, or to the "third of the heavens," as the Greeks also say. For that is the Kingdom of Heaven, not heaven itself. Or this may refer to the two heavens which Moses enumerates for us (Gen 1:6), or to the heavens created together with the earth (Gen 1:1).

Paul says of himself that he was exalted twice. First, to the third heaven, and then to the heavenly paradise, where the Lord said of the thief on the cross that he would be with Him in the paradise of the Father; see Lk 23:43.

This is where the Jerusalem above of the Kingdom of God is found, the mother of us all.

“He heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man” to utter. The Apostle did not say “to hear,” but “to utter.” For if it were impossible for a man to hear them, how would he himself 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 fully ordered voice of hymnody.

All this is known precisely by the one who saw it.

Elijah was taken only into heaven; see 4 Kgs 2:11. Paul, however, was taken both into heaven and into paradise, for the disciples of Jesus were to receive much greater grace.

He heard ineffable words that a man may not repeat. Paul descended again from the height, not because he was unworthy to remain in the third heaven.

Rather, after delighting in what surpasses human understanding and descending with glory, he was to preach Christ, accept death for Him, and receive the martyr’s crown.

Everything that can be heard with the ears can also be reported. But he heard no natural voices and saw no bodily natural images. Rather, he listened with the mind, having been caught up out of the body and not adding his own will.

What are these ineffable words which the Apostle Paul heard? What saying must we consider? It concerns the ineffable words which the divine Paul heard when he was caught up to the third heaven.

But first we must explain what the word rhema means, so that we may rightly understand the sense of the apostolic words. Rhema means word, logos, just as, conversely, a word is called a rhema. Thus the centurion said to the Lord, "Speak the word," logos, "and my servant will be healed." And Job's wife said, "Speak some word," rhema, "against the Lord, and die."

Human words and sayings are spoken by human mouths and heard by human ears. But the word of God, the word proceeding from His mouth, is wholly ineffable and inexpressible for the human tongue. It cannot be contained by the human ear. It is impossible for the word of God to enter human sensation, because sensation cannot perceive what is above every sensation.

Further, by Word and saying in God, according to the first contemplation, we understand the Word of God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, true God. By His mouth, through which He utters ineffable words, we understand the Holy Spirit. So also the Prophet says, "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things" (Isa 1:20), that is, the Spirit of the Lord.

Why, then, is the Holy Spirit called the mouth of God, while the Son is called the Saying and the Word? Our own word, which exists in our soul, is uttered and made manifest to others through our mouth. It is impossible to utter it or make it manifest in any other way except by the speech of the mouth.

So too the Son and Word of God cannot be known or heard unless He is revealed through the Holy Spirit. When we say "cannot," we say this of God in the sense of ouk endechetai, that is, it does not happen, it is unfitting, it is not proper. We also say it in the sense of "He does not will," as when Scripture says, "It is impossible for God to lie," and, "He could not do many signs."

With us, if we do not open our own mouth, our word cannot go forth. So also, unless the mouth of God is opened, that is, the Holy Spirit, through the radiance and illumination that take place in us, the Son and Word of God is not seen. He is not made manifest to our spiritual sight and hearing. I do not mean that the Spirit is opened, but that our mind is opened when it is illumined and enlightened by the Spirit.

Having explained this, we conclude that those ineffable words which the divine Paul heard are nothing other, in my poor understanding, than hidden contemplations. They are truly inexpressible and invisible, occurring through the radiance of the Holy Spirit. They are divine and unthinkable perceptions of the most radiant and unknowable glory and Godhead of the Son and Word of God. When they are revealed, they appear clearer and purer to those who are worthy.

This, I say, is what those unheard hearings of ineffable words are. They are the incomprehensible comprehension of incomprehensible things. If the Apostle said that he heard words, that is, by hearing, while we, explaining these words, have said that the Son of God the Father is spoken through the Holy Spirit. And that at the same time He is revealed to the worthy through His radiance, and if we said that such radiance or revelation occurs through contemplation and not through hearing, do not let this seem strange or unbelievable to you.

Listen instead to the resolution of this perplexity, and know the matter as it is, so that you may not be unbelieving, but faithful. The resolution is this. Attend.

God, who is the first cause of all else, is one. This One is light and life, Spirit and Word, mouth and utterance, wisdom and knowledge, joy and love, the Kingdom of heaven and paradise. He is the heaven of heavens, the sun of suns, and God of gods. Whatever other good you may name, taking your thought of it from visible things or from what is above them all, you will find that it is this One of whom I have spoken. You will be assured that it is, and is named, the Good in an all-embracing, essential, and sovereign manner.

It has no likeness at all to visible things. It is above every visible good, incomparably and ineffably. This One is not divided, as visible things are divided from one another. It remains one and the same, without any change. It is the all-good, higher than every good.

On the other hand, man, created according to the image and likeness of God, has been honored with the same mode of being. In his one soul he has mind, word, and one sense, though this sense is divided into five senses according to the five natural needs of the body.

In relation to bodily things, it is indivisibly divided through the five particular senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Being changed without change, it manifests its activity. It sees, not the sense itself, but the soul through it. It also hears, smells, tastes, and distinguishes things by touch.

In relation to spiritual things, however, there is no need for this common sense to be divided into five senses, as though into five windows. It needs no eyes which it must open in order to see the things there. It needs no ears to hear a word, no organ of smell to smell the beauties there, no lips and tongue to taste and distinguish sweet from bitter, and no hands to distinguish hard from soft or heavy from light.

It goes out beyond all these things of which we have spoken, and naturally follows the mind. It is not divided from the mind, but is wholly borne with it. Remaining wholly one sense, it has with it and in itself five senses, or, more accurately, even more, since they all are one.

Now consider more exactly, I beg you, what my discourse sets forth. Soul, mind, and word are one, in the one essence and one nature of man. This one senses and reasons as a rational being. It understands, remembers, deliberates with itself, wills or does not will, chooses or does not choose, loves or hates.

In short, this one is the living being, or power, which at the same time sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches, understands, knows, and speaks.

Listen attentively and enter into the force of what is being said to you. Then you will be able to understand what these ineffable words are, and how Saint Paul heard them. You will understand what things were revealed to him and seen by him in the Holy Spirit.

God, the Creator of all things, is one. This One, as we said before, is every good. On the other hand, the rational and immortal soul is also one. It is one whole sense, containing within itself all the senses that exist.

Therefore, when the one God of all appears by revelation to the one rational soul, every good is revealed to it. At the same time it is contemplated, or perceived, by all its senses together. This one good, which is also every good together, is seen by it and heard. It delights the taste, fills the smell with fragrance, is touched and known, speaks and is spoken, knows and is known. What it knows is also consciously known.

For he who is known by God knows that he is known. He who sees God knows that God also sees him. But he who does not see God does not know that God sees him, since he himself does not see Him, although he sees everything else well.

Therefore, those who have been counted worthy to see with all their senses together, as with one sense from many senses, this all-good, which is both one and many because it is all-good, know different goods together through the different senses of the one sense. Since they have known and daily come to know the one God, they perceive no distinction in all that has been said. They call contemplation knowledge, and knowledge contemplation. They call hearing sight, and sight hearing.

So also the prophet Habakkuk says, "O Lord, I heard Thy report and was afraid. O Lord, I understood Thy works and was amazed" (Hab 3:1). From whom else did he hear this? While prophesying, he proclaimed concerning the Lord. How then does he say, "O Lord, I heard Thy report"?

What does he wish to reveal by the doubled hearing when he says, "I heard Thy report"? Nothing other than this: through the radiance of the Holy Spirit, or through revelation from Him, he came to know our Lord Jesus Christ with certainty. Again, being instructed through the hidden speaking of this same Holy Spirit, he came to know the whole divine economy of the Lord's Incarnation.

Then he made this teaching concerning the Lord, which he had received from the Holy Spirit, his own. As though he saw the Lord, and in truth he did see Him with certainty through the radiance of the Holy Spirit, he said to Him, "In the midst of two living creatures Thou shalt be known. When the years draw near, Thou shalt be known. When the time comes, Thou shalt be revealed" (Hab 3:2).

Thus the teaching and knowledge that come through contemplation by the operation of the Spirit are called by him the hearing which he heard concerning the Lord's incarnate divine economy. By saying, "O Lord," he shows that he saw Him before himself and conversed with Him. For what man converses with someone whom he does not see?

Can anyone, without seeing an earthly king before him, say to him, "O king, I have heard the decrees which thy royal authority has established"? Certainly not. But the prophet speaks, and he says not only, "I heard Thy report," but also, "Thou shalt be known," and, "Thou shalt be revealed."

Therefore, as one who has known with full certainty the whole counsel of the Lord, he speaks to Him as if saying, "This and that, O Lord, Thou dost will to accomplish, as Thy Kingdom has decreed." Most prophetic sayings bear this same meaning.

Thus it is customary for divine Scripture to call the hearing of God the contemplation of God, and the contemplation of God the hearing of God. So too the divine Paul unusually called the inexpressible contemplations and radiances of the Holy Spirit words. He also called them teachings and revelations surpassing the measure of human nature and power. He said and wrote that he heard ineffable words.

But immediately after this he wrote, "And because of the abundance of the revelations," and so forth. If the divine Paul first said that he heard, then why, after hearing, does he call these things revelations? Revelations come through contemplation, not through hearing. David also says, "Open Thou mine eyes, and I shall understand the wonders of Thy law" (Ps 118:18).

For what reason, then, unless because, as we have said, he uses hearing in place of contemplation, and contemplation in place of hearing? The Apostle Paul also mentions that he was caught up to the third heaven. Again there is the question: how, then, did he afterwards say that he heard?

This is for no other reason than the one we have just indicated. From this we conclude that by the catching up he signified, first, the contemplation that he saw, and then the mysteries that were within this contemplation. Regarding what most clearly revealed that glory and the Godhead that shone upon him, he said that he heard it, since it communicated knowledge, instructed the one who saw it, and revealed to him what is ineffable and unthinkable for all.

Therefore, in relation to spiritual things, as we have said, the sense of hearing and the sense of sight are one. From what a man contemplates or hears there, he cannot definitively say what precisely this or that is, judging by how he sees or hears it. For this reason the Apostle said that it cannot be expressed by human language.

We, however, must struggle to purify ourselves by repentance and humility. We must unite all our senses as one with the one good and supremely good God. Then all the things that we cannot imagine or explain with many words we shall know and understand at once. We shall hear by sight and see by hearing, learn by contemplation, and listen by revelation.

He had said the same thing just before. He repeated it only to confirm the truth of these words. When you hear, "he was caught up into Paradise," do not think that he is speaking of the earthly Paradise where God placed "the man whom He had formed." For "God planted Paradise" not in heaven, but on earth, "in Eden, in the east" (Gen 2:8). Since Paul said above that "he was caught up to the third heaven," his statement would have no coherence if we understood him thus. It would mean that from there, that is, from heaven, he was again caught up to earth, where Paradise is. There, and not in heaven, he would have heard ineffable words. What, then, did Paul mean when he said, "he was caught up into Paradise"? He meant the place where God dwells and especially manifests His glory.

“He heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” Instead of “words,” some understand the realities themselves, about which a man could say nothing even if he wished. Still others suppose that Saint Paul saw God Himself, and therefore could disclose nothing about his vision.

Is this Paradise the third heaven, or was he first caught up to the third heaven and then from the third heaven into Paradise? If the latter is accepted, then the heavens passed through will not be the paradisal dwellings of the saints and angels, but some heavenly arrangements that are not paradisal.

Theodoret writes: "As some have maintained, by 'to the third heaven' the Apostle spoke of the third part of the distance between heaven and earth, to which he was caught up and heard ineffable words." According to Theodoret, it turns out that the third heaven is Paradise.