anchors 181–190

Second Century priests, who alone possessed the Lord as their inheritance for ever and had no share at all in earthly things. [00182] 46. These fully endowed by the Spirit with spiritual knowledge and virtue are able, through preaching and instruction, to make the hearts of others receptive of true devotion and faith, withdrawing their disposition and capacity from its preoccupation with corruptible nature and directing it towards the actualization of supranatural and incorruptible blessings. It is therefore fitting that in this same text the breast of the victims offered in sacrifice to God - that is, the hearts of those who offer themselves to God - and the shoulder - that is, their life of ascetic practice - should be set aside for the priests. [00183] 47. Compared with the righteousness of the age to be, all earthly righteousness fulfils the role of a mirror: it contains the image of archetypal realities, not the realities: themselves as they subsist in their true and universal nature. And compared with knowledge there, all spiritual knowledge in this world is an indistinct image - it contains a reflection of the truth but not the truth itself as it is destined to be revealed (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12). [00184] 48. Since what is divine consists in virtue and spiritual knowledge, the mirror displays the archetypes of virtue and the indistinct image reveals the archetypes of spiritual knowledge. [00185] 49. He who has conformed his life to God’s will through practice of the virtues transposes his intellect to the realm of intelligible realities by means of contemplation. By so doing he places himself utterly beyond the reach of everything that seeks to entrap him, and so is not attracted through some sensory image towards the death that lies in the passions. [00186] 50. The person who with the clear eye of faith beholds the beauty of the blessings of the age to be readily obeys the command to leave his country and his kindred and his father’s house (cf. Gen. 12:1), and he abandons the flesh, the senses and sensory things, together with passionate attachments and inclinations. In times of temptation and conflict he rises above nature because he has put the Cause of nature first, just as Abraham put God before Isaac (cf. Gen. 22:1-14). [00187] 51. So long as you do not pursue virtue or study Holy Scripture for the sake of glory, or as a cloak for greed (cf. 1 Thess. 2:5), or from love of flattery and popularity, or for self-display, but do and [00188] Second Century say and think all things for the sake of God, then you are walking with spiritual knowledge in the way of truth. If, however, you have in some respects ‘prepared the way for the Lord’, yet have not ‘made His, paths straight’, He will not come to dwell within you (cf. Isa. 40:3. LXX; Mark 1:3). [00189] 52. If you fast and avoid a mode of life which excites the passions, and in general do whatever contributes to your deliverance from evil, then you have ‘prepared the way for the Lord’. But if you do these things out of selfesteem, or greed, or love of flattery, or for some similar motive, and not with a desire to perform God’s will, then you have not ‘made His paths straight’. You have endured the labor of preparing the way but do not have God walking in your paths. [00190] 53. ‘Every valley shall be filled’ - yet not ‘every’ without qualification, or ‘everyone’s valley’, for the text does not refer to the valley of those who have not prepared the way of the Lord and made His paths straight. By a valley is meant the flesh or soul of those who have prepared the way of the Lord and made His paths straight in the manner I have explained. When such a valley has been filled with spiritual knowledge and virtue by the divine Logos who, present in His commandments, walks in its paths, then all the spirits of false knowledge and evil are ‘abased’; for the Logos treads them down and brings them into subjection. He overthrows that cunning power which has raised itself up against human nature; He levels it as if it were high and massive mountains and hills which He uses to fill in the valleys. For the rejection of passions which are contrary to nature, and the reception of virtues which are in accordance with nature, fills up the valley-like soul and abases the exalted lordship of the evil spirits (Isa. 40:4. LXX).