The Cloud and Darkness of God's Incomprehensibility

For they are indeed woods of a grove, but unless the Lord shines upon them to bear edible fruit and to make one like an apple, as he says, in the midst of the brothers among the limbs: 'Like an apple in the trees of the grove, so is my brother among the sons' (Ps 95:12). For he himself from the beginning was bearing fruit in virtue, not knowing nor doing sin; therefore he also shares his own fruit-bearing quality with those who accompany the woods of the grove, being one who happens to be an apple in the midst.

He has established the inhabited world so that it shall no longer be shaken, in righteousness the coming Lord will judge (Ps 95:13c). And he will judge in truth, and the peoples, in whom his wonders have become manifest, just as the inhabited world receives a reward of holiness according to the righteousness by which it is judged, so the peoples shall receive a perfect knowledge, so that they might no longer know by parts but might face the truth personally and fully, receiving and contemplating it.

By the sufficient hand (but the spiritual David is not he who was born of his seed according to the flesh) the earth is established, all war-like noise and disturbance having been destroyed by him (Ps 96:1); the earth is established, taking up a stability according to how it received seed to bear fruit, in R and X and L, having sown for themselves into righteousness, so that the offspring of righteousness might multiply of those sown by Jesus. Therefore also the Lord reigns, not from not reigning at all, but having come to reign from the fact that those sinning have repented and turned toward the kingdom. All the earth rejoices, doing this, being protected in the fact that the Lord has reigned over all of it.

And regarding the rejoicing, the assigned land and islands shall be glad, that is, the men and the churches dwelling in them. And it is possible also to call the souls of the steadfast according to virtue 'islands,' being tossed about by the storm and the surge of the passions, yet suffering nothing of the whole from them. Into all the minds that are set forth, he will take that which is said by God: 'Draw near to me, islands.' For the set-forth islands, having been renewed by the teaching of the new covenant, will receive the word concerning the powers of God, which those who make the paradoxes of God are able to proclaim sufficiently, which he says the Spirit...

They proclaim his virtues (that is, the virtues of God) in the islands. And because all these things exist, it happens that the islands are being completely rejoiced (Ps 96:2-3).

A cloud and thick darkness are around him—not bodily; for if the circling things were bodies, and the one being circled were a body or using a body; but incorporeal, rather exceeding bodies, are God and his only-begotten Son as God the Word is. And he says now, to present his incomprehensibility around him, 'there is a cloud and thick darkness'; and perhaps the cloud signifies the words flowing from him, and the thick darkness the obscurity of his incomprehensibility. For it is said also previously, 'He inclines the heavens and comes down' (Ps 18:1), and 'thick darkness is under his feet' (Ps 97:5); for that which is hard to see, rather incomprehensible to the mind of created beings, is presented through the thick darkness under his feet as he travels creatively and providentially.

If it is possible to take these things well concerning the Savior according to the incarnation, examine whether it can be said that there is a cloud around him, the assumed human nature being indivisible in its modes, fulfilling the prophecy saying, 'Behold, the Lord sits upon a cloud of mist' (Isa 40:4) and he goes into Egypt. For he came into the so-called allegorically Egypt, the inhabited world, and, if it is said so, sitting kingly upon a cloud of mist, he by no means has the weight of sin; for he did not commit sin by watering the whole world through this cloud. But since the descent of the Lord into the aforementioned cloud is much hard to see, it is fitting that a thick darkness also coincides with the cloud around him.

'Righteousness and judgment are the strength of his throne; fire goes before him and blazes around his enemies' (Ps 97:3-5). The strength of the throne of his kingdom is righteousness and judgment, since he, as king, is a righteous judge. This is agreed with what is found in Proverbs: 'By righteousness a throne is prepared' (Prov 16:12). Therefore, since he is found to be a righteous judge, fire going before him blazes at all his enemies. But the enemies of the word of righteousness are the irrational and those acting unjustly, as if different from the...