Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

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1189A
distinguished from us or any other being, who is hymned as
monad and triad, is neither monad nor triad, but in order that
we may truly hymn the transcendent unity and divine
fruitfulness, we name the one beyond every name with the
divine names of triad and unity, and the one beyond being from
things that are.’ 108 No-one therefore who wishes to live
reverently in the truth can say that the dyad or the multitude
is in any way without beginning or in general the beginning of
anything. The whole contemplative power and knowledge that
is in accordance with reason and understanding reveals to
everyone that there is one God, who exists beyond all infinity,
and that he is not known at all to any being, but only through
faith, and that it can be shown from his creatures that he is,
but not when he is, and that he is the maker and fashioner of
all eternity and time and of everything that exists in eternity
and time, not that they are in any way conceived together with
him from eternity, for it is known that none of the beings that
exist alongside one another from eternity could be creative of
any other. For it would be completely invalid and
unacceptable, and ridiculous to those who have minds, to
maintain that among those beings that possess being one could
be creative of another. But it has been shown that from God,
who eternally is, everything has come to be completely and
wholly from nothing, not partially or incompletely, as
proceeding wisely from a source that is infinitely wise and
infinitely powerful, and that everything is held together in it,
as protected and supported in an all-powerful foundation, and
that everything will return to it, as each to its own goal, as the
great Denys the Areopagite has said somewhere. 109
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Contemplation of divine providence 110
TEXTS 141
Anyone who is convinced that God exercises providence over
the things that are, from which he has learnt that he exists, will
judge it right and reasonable that he is none other than the
guardian of the things that are and cares for them and that he
alone is the fashioner of what is. For the permanence of what
is, and its order and position and movement, 111 and the
consonance of the extremities with the middle, the agreement
of the parts with the wholes, and the union throughout of the
wholes with the parts, and the unblurred distinction of the
parts one from another in accordance with the individuating
difference of each, and the unconfused union in accordance