Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

148 DIFFICULTY 10
B
D
1201A
the spirit, if it is attached to the enslaved seed of the flesh, but
that it can happen by the blessed promise, that is, the grace of
deification laid up in hope for those who love the Lord, which
already exists figuratively and can be received in advance. By
faith he was hiddenly assimilated to the reason concerning the
monad, according to which he came to have the form of unity,
or rather out of many was made one, magnificently and wholly
drawn up alone to God alone, 127 bearing on him no trace at all
of knowledge of any of the scattered things, which shows, I
think, the power of the One who granted him the addition to
his name of the letter alpha. 128 Therefore he has been given
the name of father of all those who approach God in faith by
depriving themselves of everything that is after God, who,
through possessing the same features of faith in the spirit, bear
a resemblance as children to their father.
46
Contemplation of Moses’ removal of his sandals
At the beginning of his way of knowledge, when he approached
to see the light that hiddenly appeared in the bush, this is
what that great man Moses was taught by the divine voice,
which said, Loose the sandals from your feet, for the place
where you are standing is holy ground (Exod. 3:5): he
marvellously learnt, I think, to set his soul free from any
inclination towards bodily things, for it was about to be made
the way through contemplation to the spiritual understanding
of what is beyond the world and through the putting off of
sandals to have a perfect change from the former life related to
the flesh.
47
Contemplation of the parts of the sacrifice
And equally again this is what the same most divine Moses
indicates in the arrangements for the sacred sacrifices, when
he orders the fat, the kidneys, breast and the lobe of the liver
to be cut off, 129 that the principal powers of the passions that
are in us, I mean the incensive and desiring parts, that is the
real material dyad, and their activities, are to be cut off and
melted away in the divine fire of the hidden power of
knowledge. For the desiring part is indicated by the kidneys,
and its activity, that is pleasure, by the fat, the incensive part
by the breast, and its activity by the lobe of the liver, in which