Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

120 DIFFICULTY 10
D
1152A
B
invisible tyrant and murderer of souls and leader of evil, the
devil, and the wicked powers that accompany him, spiritually
armed with the rod that he carries in his hand, that is, in
ascetic struggle, with the power of the Word.
23
Contemplation of how the natural law and the
written law correspond to each other 73
Similarly each of us who wishes can have all the Saints
changed into himself, in each case being formed spiritually
from the things that are written figuratively about each one
(for these things happened to them figuratively, says the divine
Apostle, but they were written down for our instruction, upon
whom the end of the ages has come: 1 Cor. 10:11). With the
Saints from of old before the law, one acquires piously
knowledge of God from the creation of the world, and is taught
how the virtues are to be exercised from the providence that
wisely orders the universe, according to those themselves who
were Saints before the law, who through all things naturally in
the spirit write beforehand in themselves the written law, and
are set forth as examples of piety and virtue for those after the
law (for look, it says, to Abraham your father and to Sarah
who bore you: Isa. 51:2). With those who are after the law, one
is led through the commandments to knowledge of God who is
named in them, and made beautiful by the proper forms of the
virtues through noble exercise, and taught that the natural
law is the same as the written, when wisely through symbols
made manifold in their exercise, and again that the written is
the same as the natural, when it becomes of single form and
simple and free of symbols [manifest] in those worthy through
reason and contemplation in accordance with virtue and
knowledge. So all the Saints written about in Scripture show
that the letter is a kind of veil, taken away by the Spirit who
possesses the natural law.
24
That through the law the Saints74 foresaw grace
For all those who beheld clearly beforehand that there would
be another form of worship beside that of the law preached
beforehand that what was to be manifest according to this
would be the consummation of the life that is most worthy of