Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

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contemplation of reality in accordance with the Spirit. So the
two laws—both the natural law and the written law—are of
equal honour and teach the same things; neither is greater or
less than the other, which shows, as is right, that the lover of
perfect wisdom may become the one who desires wisdom
perfectly.
18
Contemplation of the natural and the written
law 38
TEXTS 107
Now the law is best understood rationally by paying attention
to the different things contained in it so that one sees the
harmonious web of the whole. In this way it is seen to be
something like a book. For a book has letters and syllables,
the first things that come to our attention, connected together
but individual, and condensing many properties by bringing
them together; it also has words, which are more universal
than these, being higher and more subtle, out of which
meaning, that wisely divides and is ineffably inscribed in them,
is read and perfected, and provides a concept that is unique or
of however many forms, and through the reverent combination
of different imaginings draws them into one likeness of the true.
In an analogous way the author of existence gives himself to
be beheld through visible things. [But the law] can be regarded
as a form of teaching: in accordance with this wise suggestion,
it seems to me to be, as it were, another universe [cosmos]
made up of heaven and earth and what is in the middle,
consisting of ethical, natural and theological philosophy, 39
thus displaying the ineffable power of the one who sets it down.
This [law?] shows different things to be the same by fitting one
into another—so the written law is potentially the natural and
the natural law is habitually the written, so the same meaning
is indicated and revealed, in one case through writing and
what is manifest, in the other case by what is understood and
concealed. 40 So the words of the Holy Scripture are said to be
garments, and the concepts understood to be flesh of the
Word, in one case we reveal, in the other we conceal. So we
call garments the forms and shapes in which those things that
have come to be are put forward to be seen, and we understand
the meanings in accordance with which these things were
created to be flesh, and thus in the former case we reveal, and
in the latter we conceal. For the Creator of the universe and
the lawgiving Word is hidden as manifest, since he is invisible