The Body as a Tent and the Mystery of the Incarnation

His participation. And his state is his temple, in which God is found, in which God dwells. Perfect virtue is a house of God. 'And Christ as a son upon his house, of which we are the house,' and; 'Do you not know that you are the temple of God?'; except that we have called both virtue and perfect holiness a house, and secondly, faithful men. For this reason they become a house, because they possess virtue and holiness. It is not that the virtue makes the participants a house of God, but because of the virtue do those sharing in it become a house. And that which is over all is written as an end most especially. But because this does not happen all at once, we call the things before the end 'ends'; for there are also ends before the end: 'I have seen the end of all things' (Psalm 37:30). 'When a man has completed, then he begins.' So when he has completed, he sees the end of a certain progress; then, beginning, he seeks to see another end, and over all things he encounters the end that is over all things.

Take for me an example from the construction of a city: he who desires to build a city magnificently and—what more can I say?—royal, begins the construction. He begins to quarry stones. Often the quarrying completes much. When he has prepared those which are needed and as many as are needed, then he begins to seek a place where he will raise up the city. It becomes 'God all in all' (1 Cor 15:28), not all in each one, but 'in all'. In one he is a mourner, when someone hastens to be such; in another a good judge, in another righteous, in another a dispenser of grace, in another as a teacher to a disciple. And in all, indeed, he becomes all things to those who have drawn near to him, but not all things in each one, but either one, or two, or three gifts. And so that we may make this clear regarding the gifts: 'Receive of the Spirit'; one has the word of wisdom, another the word of knowledge, another the gift of healings. But when someone becomes perfect, no longer having the 'earnest of the Spirit' (Eph 1:14), but the Spirit itself, he becomes all things in each one. I become a perfect bearer and a bishop of the temple of God, not having anything else before my eyes except this, the temple of God, seeing it; for he has hidden me in his tent in the day of my evil. For this reason, 'One thing I have asked and this I will seek: that in the day of my evil he has hidden me in his tent' (Psalm 27:8). And progress was being spoken of. Amidst many evils lying ahead and those willing to harm me, he has hidden me. And it is sometimes said...

And the body is a tent; for it is said, 'the earth is a tent for the prudent' (Ps 103:29), and, 'we groan being in the tent' (2 Cor 5:4). Often, while we are still dwelling in the tent, the body hides us so that we are not harmed by it when someone, as I said previously, surrounds the death of Jesus in the body and strikes the body and enslaves it.

'He covered me in the secrecy of his tent.' For the secrecy of his tent is not harmful, but a covering. But the accessible part of the tent, which is already laid bare, harms rather. In this way, I am a body dwelling as if not being in a body, being swallowed up of the mortal 'by life.'

To swallow and to swallow up in the Scripture signifies victory; 'in whom they raised us, therefore we would be swallowing living ones,' instead of 'he conquered us.' And, 'Israel was laid waste, now it has become among the nations like a useless vessel' (Ps 79:6). 'All,' he says, 'who eat him will transgress.' But the eater is being swallowed up. In the tent, therefore, 'in the secrecy of his tent he hid me.'

One who has become in the body is also able, if he perceives the cause and the mystery through which it has happened in him, to be hidden in the secrecy of it; for having immediately known the mystery and the cause, he will harm himself and will not be swallowed up. And this can be said about the Savior or toward the Savior. If regarding him it is said: 'in the secrecy of his tent he hid me,' he had a tent, he became man. The descent of the Savior has a hidden mystery.

He who is able, after the one who became flesh has tabernacled in him, to say: 'we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14), was covered 'in the secrecy of his tent.' His covering has become the perceiving of the mystery of the Savior's coming. The Jews, indeed, did not perceive, and as many as are such, and they were not covered 'in the secrecy of his tent.'

And it is possible also, according to the previous argument, for the secrecy of the tent to be the end; for because of this they advance, even if it eludes those who advance; for unless someone reaches it, he is not able to see it as it is, seeing God then 'as he is' (1 John 3:2), when he comes to the end of blessedness. But, have we beheld already? — we certainly do not know. In part...