Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

D
1160A
B
TEXTS 125
from slavery, cessation of trouble, the taking away of wars,
passage beyond confusion, the receding of darkness, rest from
labours, silence from confused buzzing, quiet from excitement,
a veiling of shame, flight from the passions, the vanishing of
sin, and, to speak briefly, the termination of evils. By
achieving these things through voluntary mortification, the
Saints commend themselves as strangers and exiles (Heb. 11:
13) from this life. For fighting nobly against the world and the
body and rebellions they inspire, and strangling the deceit
that comes from both through the senses’ entanglement with
things sensible, they preserve for themselves the unenslaved
worth of the soul. Quite rightly they judge it to be lawful and
just for the worse to be led by the better, rather than the
better to be bound by the worse. This is a divine law,
implanted in those who choose the life fit to be welcomed by
rational beings, which by frugality imitates the self-sufficiency
and consecrated rest of the angels.
30
That the Saints are not introduced into the
mysteries like us
But going back to what has been already contemplated, let us
turn our attention according to our means to the rest of the
meaning of the Transfiguration, so that the excellence of the
Saints in everything and their genuine separation from the
flesh and matter may be seen. And let us note that they do
not contemplate either creation or Scripture like us in a
material or lowly way. They do not acquire the blessed
knowledge of God only by sense and appearances and forms,
using letters and syllables, which lead to mistakes and
bafflement over the judgment of the truth, but solely by the
mind, rendered most pure and released from all material
mists. Since therefore we want to judge reverently and see
clearly and intelligibly the meanings of those things perceived
by the senses, we must look carefully to the inerrant knowledge
concerning God and divine things and rightly proceed along
the straight path.