The Hidden Face and the City of Protection

Beginning. So that he might show that he is from Mary, he called himself 'a son of man'. And even the Word of God is sometimes called a son of a manan; for when he says, 'No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man' (John 3:13), he speaks this against the God Logos. Thus he is called a son of man, just as we often say that the soul is from the parents. Just as we say, 'The holy Jacob is of Isaac', we do not mean that in his nature or essence he is holy, but that he, by whom it happened to be holy, is of Isaac. Therefore, let the God Logos be called a son of man in this way.

If then you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before (Mark 4:13), we do not even take it to mean the body, so that we may not bow down to those who say that he was brought down from heaven as a body. Almost all the heretics say this, such as Marcion, Basilides, and Valentinus. In this same way, we often say, 'A wise man, holy, a friend of God', and he is a son in this respect: not that he is a son according to such a nature, but he is a son of that lineage. In composite things, we often speak of the parts in regard to the whole; just as if we say, 'A man who is intelligent, sensible, mindful, healthy in body, well-formed, and large-statured', we speak of some things from the body and some from the soul; for some of the things belonging to a composite being cannot belong to each of the individual parts in the composition. But to be awake or to sleep is said neither of the soul alone nor of the body alone; for neither does the soul do this apart from this body, nor the body without the soul. Therefore, it is said concerning the composite.

You will hide them in the secret of your face (Psalm 27:5). The creation of God is sometimes said to be his face; 'in proportion to the greatness of the beauty of the creatures, the Creator is perceived'. They are not in his hidden face, but in his manifest one. If you see a physician working, performing skillfully, you see his face; for the works of medicine demonstrate the physician. But when we are able to see the analogy of the word of the skilled ones and the disposition of the one doing the work, we no longer see his manifest face, but the hidden one. So also we say concerning God that, when we contemplate the created things, from the created things and from the greatness of the...

Regarding others, we fix our mind on God, who is a sea of beauty and greatness in His manifest face. But when we observe, why, I ask, has He made the heavens in such a way, and why in this specific manner, so that we might enter into the hiddenness of His face, into the Word through which He made all things? 'The Word became flesh' (John 1:14). Behold the outward face. 'And we beheld His glory, a glory as of the only-begotten from the Father' (John 1:14). To understand this is hidden.

Therefore, the apostle also agrees, saying: 'Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, but now we no longer know Him' (2 Cor 5:16). You will cover them from the disturbance of men in a tent, and from the contention of tongues. Those who are now being saved and delivered from the disturbance of men are covered in progress; for he who turns away from evil in order to do good does not at the same time as the turning away from evil have the good perfectly within himself. He becomes a disciple of the unique tongue, the tongue of God. For tongues signify words, and this has often been demonstrated: 'They bent their tongue like a bow' (Ps 126:3), their word; and: 'Death and life are in the power of the tongue' (Prov 18:21). The sensory tongue does not have a hand at all. But it has energy, the Word being called a tongue.

Blessed is the Lord, because His mercy has marveled in a city of protection (Ps 116:2). Having understood those who were speaking and having become in their knowledge, He sends back praises in a manner of thanks for the remainder of blessing and says: 'His mercy has marveled in a city of protection' (Ps 116:2). They were saying that He hid the abundance of His kindness for the sake of mercy, in order that He might show mercy. Having known the reason why the abundance of kindness was hidden, he blesses Him who did this and says that 'in the city of protection' we have done this. We are able to call the life there, the sojourn in this world, a 'city of protection'; for in a certain way we are enclosed as if in a fortress. And since in the Kingdoms Zion is also called a 'city of protection'—'who will take me into a city of protection?'—this protection is to be praised; it is an invincible fortress, an unassailable stronghold. Therefore, 'His mercy has marveled in the city of protection' (Ps 116:2). If anyone is outside this city, he is ignorant of why God hides the abundance of His kindness.