Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

B
C
D
1200A
all these things dispassionately, holding himself to God, and
distancing himself from what is present to him. Fear again
they divide into six: alarm, shame, disgrace, consternation,
panic and anxiety. And they say that alarm is fear of some
approaching action, shame fear of anticipated blame, disgrace
fear on account of having done something dishonourable,
consternation fear of some great imagination, panic fear of
terrible rumours that deprive one of sense, and anxiety fear of
falling, that is of failure. For when one fears one struggles in
the grip of failure. Some also call it timidity. And again they
say that the incensive power is the warmth of the blood
surrounding the heart through the longing to inflict grief in
return. They divide this into three: into anger, which some call
bitterness and revenge, and resentment, and rancour. And
they say that anger is the incensive power stirred to activity
that has a beginning and an end, or simply the incensive
power stirred up; bitterness is the reaction to another causing
grief; revenge is the punishment meted out by the one grieved
to the one who caused grief; resentment is the incensive power
grown old; 124 and rancour is the incensive power biding its
time for vengeance. 125 They divide each of these into many
others. And if anyone wanted to give an accurate account of all
this in writing, he would collect a lot of arguments and expend
a great deal of time, so that in the end it would be more than his
readers could bear for quantity. It is therefore a truly great
and wonderful thing and worth all attention and effort, and in
need before all else of divine help, to make it possible first of
all to rule over the material dyad of implanted powers, I mean
the incensive and desiring powers, and their several divisions,
and blessed is he who is able and ready to lead them by reason,
to the point of cleansing their activity of previous trains of
thought through ethical philosophy.
45
Contemplation of the addition to Abraham’s
name 126
TEXTS 147
Thereupon that great man Abraham, in Hagar and Ishmael,
transcended [the material dyad, i.e., the passionate part of the
soul] and completely rejected it, and with Isaac had already
stripped the rational part [of his soul] naked so that it was
able to entertain visions concerning the divine. He learnt from
the divine voice borne to his understanding, that there can be
no divine offspring in the mind of the free understanding in