"When you have read and carefully listened to these things, you shall know what God bestows on such as rightly love Him, being made a paradise of delight, presenting [ie bringing forth] in yourselves a tree bearing all kinds of produce and flourishing well, being adorned with various fruits. For in this place the tree... Continue Reading →
Then the fear of the law is chanted, and the grace of the prophets is known, and the faith of the gospels is established, and the tradition of the Apostles is preserved, and the grace of the Church exults; which grace if you grieve not, you shall know those things which the Word teaches, by whom He wills, and when He pleases.
“If you also desire [to possess] this faith, you likewise shall receive first of all the knowledge of the Father. For God has loved mankind, on whose account He made the world, to whom He rendered subject all the things that are in it, to whom He gave reason and understanding, to whom alone He... Continue Reading →
“As long then as the former time [prior to the coming of Christ] endured, He permitted us to be carried along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He... Continue Reading →
“As long then as the former time [prior to the coming of Christ] endured, He permitted us to be carried along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He... Continue Reading →
“For, who of the human race understood anything at all about what God is, before His coming? Do you accept of the vain and silly doctrines of those who are deemed trustworthy philosophers? Some of whom have said that fire was God, calling that God to which they themselves were by and by to come;... Continue Reading →
“For, as I said, this was no mere earthly invention which was delivered to them,.. nor has a dispensation of mere human mysteries been committed to them, but truly God Himself, who is almighty, the Creator of all things, and invisible, has sent from heaven, and placed among men, [Him who is] the truth, and... Continue Reading →
“For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity... But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities,... following the... Continue Reading →
"If God's Kingdom comes upon us, all those things which dominate us collapse into nothingness."
Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.
Most people are enclosed in their mortal bodies like a snail in its shell, curled up in their obsessions in the manner of hedgehogs.
In turn, it seems that the ancients may have just been more honest than we are. We tell ourselves that nothing is lord over us. Or we allow ourselves to live the lie that we simply ‘do what makes us happy’ when in reality we have fallen into the most absurd slavery.
An Ancient Faith For a Modern World 