Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

1164A
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TEXTS 127
humankind of those who have erred is a characteristic of
divine kindness, and the heralds of this we know as the
prophets.
3 Or knowledge and education. Knowledge is the source in
human beings of the understanding of good and evil. For I
have set before your face, he says, life and death (Deut. 30:19),
the one you are to elect, the other to flee, and lest through
ignorance you disguise the worse with the good, Moses
proclaims what is to be done, prefiguring in himself the
symbols of the truth. Education is needed for those who
without restraint do what is contrary and indiscriminately mix
what should not be mixed. In Israel the great Elijah was their
teacher, the scourge of indifference, who, like reason, led to
understanding and sense the mindlessness and hardness of
those who were utterly addicted to evil.
4 Or ascetic struggle and contemplation. Ascetic struggle
destroys evil and through the demonstration of the virtues
cuts off from the world those who are completely led through it
in their disposition, just as Moses led Israel out of Egypt and
educated her persuasively through the divine laws of the
Spirit. Contemplation seizes them as it were from matter and
form, like Elijah on his chariot of fire, 82 leading them to God
through knowledge and uniting them with Him, so that they
are no longer weighed down by the flesh because of the setting
aside of its law, nor burning with zeal for the fulfilment of the
commandments, because of the grace of poverty of spirit mixed
with all real virtues. 5 Or again they learnt from the Word the
mysteries of marriage and celibacy: through Moses, how one is
not prevented by marriage from being a lover of the divine
glory; and through Elijah, how he remained completely pure
from any marital intercourse, and how the Word and God
proclaims that those who direct themselves in these things by
reason according to the laws that are divinely laid down
concerning them are made to enter into Himself in a hidden
way.
6 Or life and death: through them they are faithfully
assured that the Word is Lord.
7 Or they learnt, too, through these that everyone lives to
God and no-one at all is dead with Him, but that one kills
oneself through sin and, through the willing turning towards
the passions, cuts oneself off from the Word.
8 Or again they received illumination that the types of the
mysteries exist in relation to and are referred to the Word,