anchors 561–570

41. Circumcision, in its mystical sense, is the complete cutting away of the intellect’s impassioned attachment to all that comes into being in a contingent manner. Viewing things on the natural level, we recognize that the removal of an attribute naturally bestowed by God does not produce perfection. For nature does not bring about perfection when it is mutilated by human ingenuity, or when through over-subtlety men deprive it of something conferred on it by God at creation. Otherwise we would be attributing to human ingenuity more power to establish a perfect order of things than to God, and to an ingenious mutilation of nature the ability to make good shortcomings in God’s creation. But if we understand circumcision figuratively, we learn that we. are spiritually to circumcise the impassioned disposition of our soul. In this way our will, having freed the intellect from its impassioned subjection to the law that rules the birth of contingent things, is brought into harmony with nature. [00562] 42. Uncircumcision is natural. Everything that is natural is the work of divine creation and is excellent: ‘And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good’ (Gen. 1:31). But the Law, by demanding on the grounds of uncleanness that the foreskin should be cutaway by circumcision (cf. Gen. 17:10-14), presents God as amending His own work through human skill. This is a most blasphemous way of looking at things. He, then, who interprets the symbols whereby the Law is expressed in the light of knowledge attained through natural contemplation, knows that God does not set nature aright by means of human skill, but bids us circumcise the passible aspect of the soul so as to make it obedient to [00563] Fifth Century the intelligence. This is indicated figuratively in terms of the body, and means that we are to excise the flaws from our will by means of spiritual knowledge acquired through the courageous practice of the virtues. The circumcising priest signifies spiritual knowledge, and the knife he uses is the courageous practice of the virtues, which cuts away the passions. When the. Spirit triumphs over the letter, the tradition of the Law is abolished. [00564] 43. The Sabbath (cf. Exod. 16:23; 20:10) signifies rest from the passions, and from the intellect’s gravitation towards the nature of created beings. It signifies the total quiescence of the passions, a complete cessation of the intellect’s gravitation towards created things, and its total entry into the divine. He who has attained this state - so far as God permits - by means of virtue and spiritual knowledge, must not ponder on any material thing at all for, like sticks (cf. Num. 15:32), such things excite the passions; and he must not call to mind any natural principle whatsoever. Otherwise, like the pagans, we will be affirming that God delights in the passions or is commensurate with nature. Perfect silence alone proclaims Him, and total and transcendent unknowing brings us into His presence. [00565] 44. A crown of goodness (cf. Ps. 65:11) is a pure faith, adorned with eloquent doctrine, and with spiritual principles and intellections, as if with precious stones, and set as it were on the head of the devout intellect. Or rather, a crown of goodness is the Logos of God Himself, who encircles the intellect as if it were a head, protecting it with manifold forms of providence and judgment - that is, with mastery of the passions that lie within our control and with patient endurance of those we suffer against our will; and who makes this same intellect more beautiful by enabling it to participate in the grace of deification. [00566] 45. In the preceding passage it is said that self-control is a work of God’s providence, because it purifies the passions which lie within the control of the will. It is also said that patient endurance is a work of God’s judgment, because it enables us to resist those trials we suffer against our will. Moreover, being a token of practical philosophy, such endurance brings those who have been enslaved in an Egypt of sin across to the realm of virtue. [00567] 46. God did not order the Sabbath, the new moons and the feasts to be honored because He wanted men to honor the days [00568] Fifth Century themselves: this would have been tantamount to decreeing by the Law that men should worship creation rather than the Creator (cf. Rom. 1:25), and should regard the days as holy in themselves and therefore to be venerated. On the contrary, He indicated that He Himself was to be honored symbolically through the days. For He is the Sabbath, as the soul’s repose after its exertions in the flesh, and as the cessation of its sufferings in the cause of righteousness. He is the Passover, as the liberator of those held in the bitter slavery of sin. He is the Pentecost, as the origin and consummation of all created beings, and as the principle through which all things by nature exist. Thus the Law destroys those who apprehend it in a literal or outward way, leading them to worship creation rather than the Creator, and to regard as holy in themselves things that were brought into existence for man’s sake; for they remain ignorant of Him on whose account they were created. [00569] 47. The world is a finite place and possesses but limited stability. Time is circumscribed movement. It follows that the movement of living things within time is subject to change. When nature passes beyond place and time, actively ‘and inwardly - that is, when it passes beyond those things which always accompany created being, namely, a limited state of stability and limited movement - it is united directly with providence, and finds in providence a principle which is by nature simple, stable, without limitation and thus completely without movement. [00570] 48. Since nature exists in the world in a temporal mode, its movement is subject to change because of the world’s limited stability and its liability to alteration and corruption through the passing of time. When nature has come to exist in God through the essential unity of Him in whom it was created, it will possess an ever-moving stability and a stable and changeless form of movement generated eternally round that which is one, unique and always the same. It has been said that this state is a direct and permanent grounding in the first cause of created beings.