Patristic Quote of the Day

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Tue 5 August 2003 2:56 pm

Even you, therefore, yourselves, guide them each one, and control the minds of the lapsed by counsel and by your own moderation, according to the divine precepts. Let no one pluck the unripe fruit at a time as yet premature. Let no one commit his ship, shattered and broken with the waves, anew to the deep, before he has carefully repaired it. Let none be in haste to accept and to put on a rent tunic, unless he has seen it mended by a skilful workman. and has received it arranged by the fuller. Let them bear with patience my advice, I beg. - Saint Cyprian, Epistle 11

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Thu 7 August 2003 10:55 am

If any bishop, or any other of the clergy, fasts with the Jews, or keeps the festivals with them, or accepts of the presents from their festivals, as unleavened bread or some such thing, let him be deprived; but if he be one of the laity, let him be suspended.

If any Christian carries oil into an heathen temple, or into a synagogue of the Jews, or lights up lamps in their festivals, let him be suspended. - Apostolic Canons, 70-71

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Thu 7 August 2003 10:58 am

Seest thou how by degrees love makes her nursling an angel? For when he is void of anger, and pure from envy, and free from every tyrannical passion, consider that even from the nature of man he is delivered from henceforth, and hath arrived at the very serenity of angels. - Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 33 on First Corinthians

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Fri 8 August 2003 11:07 am

But be wise, O my father, and shake off the rheum and mist from the eyes of thy mind, lift them aloft and look upward to view the light of my God that enlighteneth all around, and be thyself, at last, enlightened with this light most sweet. Why art thou wholly given up to the passions and desires of the flesh, and why is there no looking upward? Know thou that all flesh is grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of my Lord, which by the gospel is preached unto all, shall endure for ever. Why then dost thou thus madly cling to and embrace that glory, which, like spring flowers, fadeth and perisheth, and to beastly unsavoury wantonness, and to the abominable passions of the belly and the members thereunder, which for a season please the senses of fools, but afterwards make returns more bitter than gall, when the shadows and dreams of this vain life are passed away, and the lovers thereof, and workers of iniquity are imprisoned in the perpetual pain of dark and unquenchable fire, where the worm that sleepeth not gnaweth for ever, and where the fire burneth without ceasing and without quenching through endless ages? - Saint John of Damascus (or St. Euthymius of Georgia), Barlaam and Iosaph, 24

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Sat 9 August 2003 2:17 pm

Whoever comes to the monastery must first learn what he should observe. Then, after this first instruction, when he has consented to it all, he shall be given twenty psalms to learn, or two of the Apostle's epistles, or part of another book of Scripture.

If he is illiterate, he shall go at the first, third and sixth hours to find someone who can teach him and who has been appointed for this. He shall stand before him and learn very carefully, with great gratitude. Then the letters of the syllables shall be written for him and he shall be forced to read, even if he refuses.

Everyone in the monastery shall learn letters and memorize something of the Scriptures, at least the New Testament and the Psalter. - Saint Pachomius, Rule of Pachomius, 139-140

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Sun 10 August 2003 12:30 pm

...through the Lord Himself we will become closely united in the mutual affiliation of a bishop to his flock and of a flock to its bishop. In the writings of the holy fathers this affiliation is compared to matrimony: the bishop is like a bridegroom to the flock – his bride. And as a husband loves his wife, so that he leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to her, allying himself with her and coming to live with her, so a bishop must love his flock. And as a wife obeys her husband, so the flock must obey its bishop...

From now on I will direct my thoughts and cares to you and to your benefit. From now on I will consecrate my strengths and talents to serving you. I come to you with love, brethren. I request that you also receive me with love. My love will be expressed in care and solicitude towards you, in serving you; and your love should manifest itself in obedience to me, in trusting me and in cooperation with me...

I request cooperation and collaboration not only from the priests, but also from all my beloved flock. The holy Apostle Paul wisely compares the Church of Christ to a body in which there is not one but many members (I Cor. 12:14) each of which has not a common but a separate function (Rom. 12:4). The eye has its function, and so has the hand. Each member is indispensable and cannot do without the other. They all have care for one another, and there is no disunion in the body. (I Cor. 12:21, 25, 26). -Saint Tikhon of Moscow, On Cooperation in the Church (Delivered in December 1898 in the City of San Francisco upon his accession to the Episcopal See of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands)

Lounger · Post by **Lounger** » Mon 11 August 2003 12:02 am

Can others join in?

"For this is the love of God, that we be keeping His commandments. And His
commandments are not heavy" [1 Jn. 5:3].

What answer will we give in that Day? 'I followed this shepherd, because I
thought that he kept Thy laws, O Lord'? Is that enough to save us?

"Whosoever...sets at nought His doctrine, shall go into gehenna. In like
manner, every one that has received from God the power of distinguishing,
and yet follows an unskillful shepherd, and receives a false opinion for the
truth, shall be punished.... Let no one be anointed with the bad odour of
the doctrine of [the prince of] this world; let not the holy Church of God
be led captive by his subtlety, as was the first woman. Why do we not, as
gifted with reason, act wisely? When we had received from Christ, and had
grafted in us the faculty of judging concerning God, why do we fall headlong
into ignorance? and why, through a careless neglect of acknowledging the
gift which we have received, do we foolishly perish?"

St. Ignatius the Godbearer, Hieromartyr of Antioch
[Epistle to the Ephesians]