The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
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Ephrem The Syrian
AD 373
The signs manifested to the external eyes of the Jews did them little good. But faith opened the eyes of the hearts of the Gentiles.
Let us understand that we arrive at the full mystery of God by two routes: We ourselves by rational insight may come to understand and discern something of the knowledge of divine things. But when there is a certain divine selfdisclosure God himself reveals his divinity to us. Some may directly perceive by this revelation something remarkable, majestic and close to truth. … But when we receive wisdom we apprehend what is divine both through our own rational insight and through God’s own Spirit. When we come to know what is true in the way this text intends, both these ways of knowing correspond. –.
His phrase “eyes of the heart” clearly refers to those things we cannot understand without sense and intelligence…. Faith sees beyond what the physical eyes see. Physical eyes are in the heads of not only the wise but the unwise. .
It is not without effort that we come to “know the hope of our calling and the riches of God’s inheritance in the saints.” This effort in fact comes in response to that renewing gift which God himself gives in the glorious resurrection of his own Son. This gift he gives not once but continually…. Every day Christ rises from the dead. Every day he is raised in the penitent. .
That you may know, says he, what is the hope of His calling.
It is as yet, he means, hidden, but not so to the faithful.
And, again, what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
This too is as yet hidden.
But what is clear? That through His power we have believed that He has raised Christ. For to persuade souls, is a thing far more miraculous than to raise a dead body. I will endeavor to make this clear. Hearken then. Christ said to the dead, Lazarus, come forth, John 11:43 and straightway he obeyed. Peter said, Tabitha, arise, Acts 9:40 and she did not refuse. He Himself shall speak the word at the last day, and all shall rise, and that so quickly, that they which are yet alive, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 and all shall come to pass, all run together in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. 1 Corinthians 15:52 But in the matter of believing, it is not thus, but how is it? Hearken then to Him again, how He sa...
He that has learned what God is, will have no misgiving about His promises, and disbelief about what has been already brought to pass. He prays, then, that there may be given them a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Yet still he also establishes it, as far as he can himself, by arguments, and from already existing facts. For, whereas he was about to mention some things which had already come to pass, and others which had not as yet happened; he makes those which have been brought to pass, a pledge of those which have not: in some such way, I mean, as this,
He likewise will grant "the enlightenment of the eyes of the understanding".
In His gift, too, are "the riches (of the glory) of His inheritance in the saints"
