The disproportion between the natural virtues and those having a supernatural essence or between those tainted by a secret vanity and those that are pure and deep implies that virtues of the second category may be at times less apparent than those of the first and that a certain spiritual modesty may even conceal them. It may also be
that some inner reality, misunderstood from without, may seem to contradict them.In a similar manner gnosis sometimes gives rise to paradoxical expressions, which in reality indicate theualitative separation between the profane and spiritual planes; but this discontinuity is only one aspect alongside another that is more important, that of analogy and essential continuity.
Frithjof Shuon in Prayer Fashions Man