Veiled from every eye, yet in plain sight: Bahá’u’lláh addresses God as first and last, manifest and hidden, and refuses to let the pairs cancel each other out. The paradox becomes legible when the standpoint shifts. Any person is first in relation to a child and last in relation to a parent, outward in the body and inward in the trust deposited in the soul; the four states are true of one self at once, and so they can be true of the divine reality that the Manifestations reveal. Bahá’u’lláh’s larger claim follows: the Prophets are all the exponents of the first and the last, so much one person, one soul, one revelation, that each could call Himself the Seal of the Prophets and speak the truth. The Alpha and Omega of Revelation, who comes with His recompense, offers the same vocabulary in another setting [1]. The journey continues into the names and attributes of God, into the outward and inward meanings of a text, and into the mirror of macrocosm and microcosm by which a single life can contain the pattern of the whole.
First art Thou and Last art Thou, Manifest art Thou and Hidden art Thou,
Veiled from every eye, yet in plain sight art Thou!
(Bahá’u’lláh, to Aqa Mirza Aqa Kashani -- BH04474)
02
I beseech Thee by Thy Lastness which is the same as Thy Firstness, and by Thy Revelation which is identical with Thy Concealment, to grant that they who are dear to Thee, and their children, and their kindred, may become the revealers of Thy purity amidst Thy creatures, and the manifestations of Thy sanctity amongst Thy servants.
(Bahá’u’lláh, ca. 1289-1290?, to son of Hadrat-i-Shahid Husayn (son of Mahbubush-Shuhada) -- BH08265)
03
Were a discerning eye to be found, it will readily perceive that the exponents of the "first" and the "last," of the "manifest" and the "hidden," of the "beginning" and the "seal" are none other than these holy Beings, these Essences of Detachment, these divine Souls.
… For they are all but one person, one soul, one spirit, one being, one revelation. They are all the manifestation of the "Beginning" and the "End," the "First" and the "Last," the "Seen" and "Hidden" -- all of which pertain to Him Who is the innermost Spirit of Spirits and eternal Essence of Essences.
(Bahá’u’lláh, Kitab-i-Iqan (The Book of Certitude), 1278 ca. [1861-1862], to Haji Mirza Siyyid Muhammad, great uncle of the Bab (Khal-i-Akbar) -- BH00002)
04
Praise be to God Who sent the Beginning in the form of the End, and manifested the First in the image of the Last, that the word might be fulfilled that He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He is God, the Single, the All-Informed.
(Bahá’u’lláh, 1301-03-09 [1884-Jan-8], to Tabib -- BH02073)
05
Say: God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, Who was God - First, Last, Manifest and Hidden. That is the Lord of all worlds. He it is Who createth what He willeth by His command, and verily He is the Creator, the Inaccessible, the Exalted.
… And verily We were the first of the first ones, and verily We were the last of the last ones, and verily We were the most manifest of the manifest ones, and verily We were the most hidden of the hidden ones.
(The Báb, Kitab-i-Jaza' (Book of the Reckoning), 1264-05-05 ca. (Chihriq) [1848-Apr-9], to Mulla Husayn, Quddus, 'Abdu'l-Vahhab, Aba 'Ali, Hasan, 'Azim, Yahya and others -- BB00004)
06
I supplicate Thee by Him Whom Thou hast called into being, Whose Revelation Thou hast ordained to be Thine own Revelation and His Concealment Thine own Concealment. Through His Firstness Thou hast confirmed Thine own Firstness, and through His Lastness Thou hast affirmed Thine own Lastness.
(Bahá’u’lláh, 1290 [1873] or earlier, to Baba known as Karim -- BH00848)
07
For instance, let thine eminence consider his own self: Thou art first in relation to thy son, and last in relation to thy father. In thine outward appearance thou tellest of the appearance of power in the realms of divine creation; in thine inward being thou revealest the hidden mysteries which are the divine trust deposited within thee. And thus firstness and lastness, outwardness and inwardness, are, in the sense referred to, all true of thyself, so that in these four states conferred upon thee thou mayest comprehend the four divine states, and that the nightingale of thine heart, warbling on all the flowering branches of the tree of existence, whether seen or unseen, might cry out: "He is the First and the Last, the Seen and the Hidden!"
(Bahá’u’lláh, Haft Vadi (The Seven Valleys), to Shaykh Muhiyid-Din Judge of Khaniqayn et al -- BH00047)