Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

130 DIFFICULTY 10
1168A
B
C
through his immeasurable love for humankind to become the
type and symbol of Himself, and from Himself symbolically to
represent Himself, and through the manifestation of Himself
to lead to Himself in His complete and secret hiddenness the
whole creation, and while He remains quite unknown in his
hidden, secret place beyond all thing, unable to be known or
understood by any being in any way whatever, out of his love
for humankind he grants to human beings intimations of
Himself in the manifest divine works 88 performed in the flesh.
31d
The light from the face of the Lord, therefore, conquers the
human blessedness of the apostles by a hidden apophatic
theology. According to this [light], the blessed and holy
Godhead is by essence beyond ineffability and unknowability
and countlessly raised above all infinity, leaving not the
slightest trace of comprehension to those who are after it [sc.
the Godhead], nor disclosing any idea to any being as to how
and how far the same is both monad and triad, 89 since the
uncreated is not naturally contained by creation, nor is the
unlimited comprehended by what is limited.
31e
The affirmative mode [of theology] can be differentiated into
those concerned with activity, with providence and with
judgment. The mode [concerned with activity], starting from
the beauty and magnitude of creatures, introduces the
explanation that the God of all is the fashioner, this shown
through the radiant garments of the Lord, which the Word
shows to be the manifestation of creatures.
31f
The mode concerned with providence signifies through Moses
how out of love for humankind it is raised above those who are
embroiled in evil and error and wisely distinguishes among
human beings the ways of departure from the material and
corruptible and bodily to the divine and immaterial and
bodiless, and with understanding implants the divine laws.