Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

B
1308A
C
D
DIFFICULTY 41 155
concentrated and in itself naturally mediates between the
extremities of each division, having been drawn into
everything in a good and fitting way through becoming, is
divided into male and female.
For humanity clearly has the power of naturally uniting at
the mean point of each division since it is related to the
extremities of each division in its own parts. Through that
capacity it can come to be the way of fulfilment of what is
divided and be openly instituted in itself as the great mystery
of the divine purpose. It proceeds harmoniously to each of the
extremities in the things that are, from what is close at hand
to what is remote, from what is worse to what is better, lifting
up to God and fully accomplishing union. For this reason the
human person was introduced last among beings, 4 as a kind of
natural bond 5 mediating between the universal poles through
their proper parts, and leading into unity in itself those things
that are naturally set apart from one another by a great
interval. 6
In order to bring about the union of everything with God as
its cause, the human person begins first of all with its own
division, and then, ascending through the intermediate steps
by order and rank, it reaches the end of its high ascent, which
passes through all things in search of unity, to God, in whom
there is no division. It accomplishes this by shaking off every
natural property of sexual differentiation into male and female
by the most dispassionate relationship to divine virtue. This
sexual differentiation clearly depends in no way on the
primordial reason behind the divine purpose concerning
human generation. 7 Thus it is shown to be and becomes simply
a human person in accordance with the divine purpose, no
longer divided by being called male or female. It is no longer
separated as it now is into parts, and it achieves this through
the perfect knowledge, as I said, of its own logos, in accordance
with which it is. 8 Then, by a way of life proper and fitting to
Saints, the human person unites paradise and the inhabited
world to make one earth, no longer is it experienced as divided
according to the difference of its parts, but rather as gathered
together, since no introduction at all of partition is allowed.
Then, through a life identical in every way through virtue with
that of the angels, 9 so far as is possible to human beings, the
human person unites heaven and earth, making the whole of
creation perceived through the senses one with itself and un
divided, not dividing it spatially by intervals in any way,
since the human person has become as subtle as spirit and is