One thing which gives these poems their strangely unique power is the sentiment to which they appeal, and the saintly character of the poet who makes the appeal, illumining more or less every poem.
That is to be found in a guiding and illumining reflective activity.
It brings the massive oeuvre and the chronicle of the life into manageable proportions, one illumining the other.
That baptism is called the Seal (vdpa'yls), and Illumination (4ceno-phs) in the 2nd century has been set down to the influence of the pagan mysteries; but as a matter of fact the former term is a metaphor from military discipline, and the idea conveyed in the latter that gnosis or imparting of divine love is an illumining of the soul is found both in the Old and New Testaments.
