Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/72

44 declared His beauteous signs, and those who searched diligently prefigured Him in proverbs; but the perfect accomplishment of the whole has appeared to us in a wonderful mystery, and in an astounding way. He covered and hid His dazzling brightness with a corporeal; corruptible and vile garment, for had He appeared to the children of the dust in His glory, who could have looked upon His Divine splendour, who would have been so rash as to gaze upon His exalted Image, or who could dare to conceive of Him Who is beyond all conception? Did He not say to the son of Amram: 'Turn back, for no man can look upon Me and live?' Great is He Who is Born, Who strikes all creatures with awe!

(l) "Hitherto the law of nature was in force, but in the appearance of the from a virgin, the law of birth from [conjugal] union was abrogated; and the mind that would comprehend how this was must lose itself in the inquiry.

(m) "On the exalted throne of that glorious Temple whose two gates are built in wisdom on the confines of the two worlds, [reference here is made to the Divinity and Humanity of ,] there the of all creation sat as Supreme Ruler. Like kings who take a survey of all their dominions in order to manifest the greatness of their affection towards the nations under their sway, and to cause peace and safety to dwell among them;—for a similar end the, the King, took upon Him a human body, that the two worlds, the visible and invisible, might be comprehended in Him, and that by a gate within a gate [the Divine Nature hidden under the Human] He might bring both together, and join them in One. This is the mystery contained in the words spoken by the Spirit, that from a daughter of David and of Abraham the  should be born. David says of Him, that 'His throne shall stand as the sun, and shall endure as the moon to order and to establish all things,' that is, by His manifested Divinity, and by the life and wisdom of His Humanity; for in the motions of Himself He comprehends all the angels in the highest, and, in the members of His Body, He comprehends man who is on the earth, thereby fulfilling, as in a rational way, that the two worlds are, by the power of His Spirit, but One body, and He is that very One Who through these sees the things which we cannot see. He is the very One