Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

D
1120A
B
C
that through virtue and knowledge they might already in
inclination become what through hope we believe is the
destiny of those who are worthy in the world of incorruption.
7
Contemplation of the crossing of the Jordan 16
So Jesus, 17 Moses’ successor—to pass over for the sake of the
people most of the things that are told about him—took on a
people who, in the desert, had been educated to piety in many
ways. After Moses’ death, he sanctified them by a strange form
of circumcision with swords of stone, 18 and led all the people
dryfoot across the Jordan which had dried up at the approach
of the ark. In this he clearly prefigures the Saviour, the Word,
who after the death of the letter of the legal ordinances
receives the leadership of the true Israel that sees God 19 to
take them up to the heights of intelligible reality. By
circumcising them by the sharpest word [reason] of faith in
Him from every defilement of soul and body, and freeing them
from all the reproaches of those who incite to sin, He causes the
unstable nature of time and moving things to pass to the state
of the bodiless beings, and held floating on the shoulders of the
virtues the knowledge that is able to receive the divine
mysteries.
8
Contemplation of fall of Jericho 20
TEXTS 101
So again by seven encirclements and as many trumpets he
[Jesus, son of Navê] threw down with a secret shout the city of
Jericho which was difficult to conquer or even unconquerable.
In this he secretly pointed to the very Word of God, as
conqueror of the world and perfecter of the age, by mind and
reason, as well as knowledge and virtue. Of this the ark and
the trumpets are types, and to those who follow him the realm
of the senses is shown to be easily conquered and overcome,
containing nothing fit for the delight of those who love what is
divine, since it is joined to death and corruption and a cause of
divine anger. And Achar, 21 the son of Charmi, shows how
troubling trains of thought that love the material, besides
establishing within something of the sensible realm, draw
down that pitiable death according to the divine decree, which
reason works in the depths of the wicked conscience,
strangling any worthy of such vengeance.