Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

B
C
D
They say to the maker of nature and the giver of help
according to the law, Behold we have left all and followed you
(Matt. 19:27), and possessing Him, that is the Lord, as the
most singular light of truth instead of law and nature, they
fittingly receive the unfailing knowledge of all that is after
God. The knowledge of all that has come to be through Him is
naturally and properly made known together with Him. For
just as with the rising of the sensible sun all bodies are made
known, so it is with God, the intelligible sun of righteousness,
rising in the mind: although He is known to be separate from
the created order, He wishes the true meanings of everything,
whether intelligible or sensible, to be made known together
with Himself. And this is shown on the mount of the
Transfiguration of the Lord when both the brightness of his
garments and the light of His face, made Him known, and
drew to God the knowledge of those who were after Him and
around Him. For as the eye cannot, without light, grasp
sensible things, neither can the mind, apart from the
knowledge of God, receive spiritual contemplation. For there
light gives to sight the perception of visible things, and here
the vision of God grants to the mind the knowledge of things
intelligible.
28
Contemplation of Adam’s transgression
TEXTS 123
As the forefather Adam did not pay attention to God with the
eye of the soul, he neglected this light, and willingly, in the
manner of a blind man, felt the rubbish of matter with both
his hands in the darkness of ignorance, and inclined and
surrendered the whole of himself to the senses alone. Through
this he took into himself the corruptive venom of the most
bitter of wild beasts, and did not benefit from his senses apart
from God, and instead of God, as he wished, nor take care to
possess the things of God, in accordance with God, as it ought
to be, as something inconceivable. For when he decided to be
guided by his senses, which are much more like the serpent
than God, and took the first-fruits of food from the forbidden
tree, in which he had been taught beforehand that fruit and
death went together, 80 he changed the life that is proper to
fruit, and fashioned for himself a living death for the whole of
the time of this present age. For if death exists as the
corruption of coming to be, the body that is preserved in being
by the flux of nourishment is always naturally suffering