Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church
Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church
B C D who have denied the movements of the flesh and set aside the soul’s inclination towards them, and are filled with all true power of discernment. 15 Contemplation of the unclean house 30 For when I hear about the priest who, according to the legal dispensation, enters into a house that is unclean in any way, and demands what is necessary for the purification of the possessions, I think that this signifies reason, the high priest, entering into the soul after the manner of the purest light, and uncovering the polluted wishes and thoughts and the blameworthy acts, and wisely proposing the ways of conversion and purification. And that is, I think, more clearly signified by the woman who received the great prophet, Elisha, saying, Man of God, you have come to me to remind me of my wrongdoings (3 Kgd 17:18). 16 Contemplation of Elisha and the widow of Sarepta 31 For every soul, widowed of good things and become a desert of virtue and knowledge of God, when it receives divine reason, powerful in discernment, comes to knowledge of its sins and is taught how with loaves of virtue to support the nourishing word, and to give the fountain of life to drink with the dogmas of truth, and to prefer care for reality to reality itself. In this way the stone vessel of flesh will minister to the practical harmony of the virtues, and the basket of the mind will continually flow with contemplation that carefully preserves the light of knowledge, and natural reason, like the son of the widow, will put aside the former life bound up with the passions and be made worthy to become a partaker of the divine and true life that is reason’s gift. 17 Contemplation of the Transfiguration of the Lord 32 TEXTS 105 So also we read that it happened to certain of Christ’s disciples that together with Him they ascended and were lifted up by Him to the mountain of His manifestation because of their
106 DIFFICULTY 10 1128A B C diligence in virtue. There they beheld Him transfigured, unapproachable because of the light of his face, were amazed at the brightness of his clothes and, in the honour shown Him by Moses and Elijah who were with Him on either side, they recognized his great awesomeness. And they passed over from flesh to spirit, before they had put aside this fleshly life, by the change in their powers of sense that the Spirit worked in them, lifting the veils of the passions from the intellectual activity that was in them. Then, having both their bodily and the spiritual senses purified, they were taught the spiritual meanings [logoi] of the mysteries that were shown to them. They were taught hiddenly that the allblessed radiance that shone resplendently from his face, as it overpowered the sight of the eyes, was a symbol of His divinity that transcends mind and sense and being and knowledge. He had neither form nor beauty, 33 but they knew him as the Word become flesh, and thus were led to regard him as fair with beauty beyond the sons of men, 34 and to understand that He is the One who was in the beginning, and was with God and was God, 35 and through a theological denial 36 that praises Him as being completely uncontained, they were led contemplatively to the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 37 The whitened garments conveyed a symbol of the words of Holy Scripture, which in this case became shining and clear and limpid to them, and were grasped by the mind without any riddling puzzle or symbolic shadow, revealing the meaning that lay hidden within them. Thus they arrived at a clear and correct understanding concerning God, and were set free from every attachment to the world and the flesh. Or [the garments can be understood as a symbol] of creation itself, which a base presumption regards in a limited way as delivered to the deceiving senses alone, but which can be understood, through the wise variety of the various forms that it contains, on the analogy of a garment, to be the worthy power of the generative Word who wears it. For in both cases what is said is accommodated to the meaning, so that in both cases it can be veiled from us because of its obscurity, lest we dare unworthily to apply it to what is beyond comprehension, whether, in the case of the written Holy Scripture, to the One revealed as the Word or, in the case of creation, to the One revealed as Creator and maker and fashioner. Whence in both cases I think it necessarily follows that anyone who wishes may live an upright and blameless life with God, whether through scriptural understanding in the Spirit, or through the natural
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B<br />
C<br />
D<br />
who have denied the movements of the flesh and set aside the<br />
soul’s inclination towards them, and are filled with all true<br />
power of discernment.<br />
15<br />
Contemplation of the unclean house 30<br />
For when I hear about the priest who, according to the legal<br />
dispensation, enters into a house that is unclean in any way,<br />
and demands what is necessary for the purification of the<br />
possessions, I think that this signifies reason, the high priest,<br />
entering into the soul after the manner of the purest light, and<br />
uncovering the polluted wishes and thoughts and the<br />
blameworthy acts, and wisely proposing the ways of conversion<br />
and purification. And that is, I think, more clearly signified by<br />
the woman who received the great prophet, Elisha, saying,<br />
Man of God, you have come to me to remind me of my<br />
wrongdoings (3 Kgd 17:18).<br />
16<br />
Contemplation of Elisha and the widow of<br />
Sarepta 31<br />
For every soul, widowed of good things and become a desert of<br />
virtue and knowledge of God, when it receives divine reason,<br />
powerful in discernment, comes to knowledge of its sins and is<br />
taught how with loaves of virtue to support the nourishing<br />
word, and to give the fountain of life to drink with the dogmas<br />
of truth, and to prefer care for reality to reality itself. In this<br />
way the stone vessel of flesh will minister to the practical<br />
harmony of the virtues, and the basket of the mind will<br />
continually flow with contemplation that carefully preserves<br />
the light of knowledge, and natural reason, like the son of the<br />
widow, will put aside the former life bound up with the<br />
passions and be made worthy to become a partaker of the<br />
divine and true life that is reason’s gift.<br />
17<br />
Contemplation of the Transfiguration of the<br />
Lord 32<br />
TEXTS 105<br />
So also we read that it happened to certain of Christ’s disciples<br />
that together with Him they ascended and were lifted up by<br />
Him to the mountain of His manifestation because of their
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