| St Nicholas was a participant at this council, and is particularly remembered for his zeal against Arius. Having openly combatted him with words, Bishop Nicholas, in a fit of fervour (some accounts indicate he was displeased with Arius " monopolisation of the meeting with his " constant arguing " ), went so far as to strike Arius on the face. Shocked by this behaviour, especially given that the canons forbid clergy from striking any one at all, yet uncertain of how to react to such actions by a hierarch they knew and respected, the fathers of the council determined to deprive Nicholas of his episcopal emblems (traditionally his omophorion and the Gospel book), and placed him under guard. However, a short time later, several of the assembled fathers reported having a common vision: the Lord and His Mother returning to Nicholas his episcopal items, instructing that he was not to be punished, for he had acted " not out of passion, but extreme love and piety " This was taken as a sign that the extreme behaviour of Nicholas was nonetheless pleasing to God, who was thus restored to the fulness of his episcopal office. Nicholas the Wonderworker St Nicholas " title " wonderworker " comes from the multitude of reports of miracles that issued forth at his intercession, both during his life and after. The renown of his miraculous acts was widespread in his own lifetime. As he had secretly delivered gold, many years before, to the father of three destitute daughters, so he secretly delivered gold to an Italian merchent (by some accounts, this gold was left miraculously by an apparition of the saint appearing to the merchant in Italy), convincing him to sail to Myra with a shipment of grain. And so by his prayers and deeds, his city of Myra was rescued from a terrible famine. One miracle, particularly widely known, was Bishop Nicholas " conversion of the local governor, who had been bribed into unjustly condeming three men to death. The saint approached the executioner, who had already raised his sword to issue the death-blow, and swiftly removed it from his hands. He then approached the governor and denounced his unjust action. This latter, convicted by St Nicholas " words, repented and asked the saint " s forgiveness. This episode is remembered as connected directly to another: for three officers of the imperial military were present to see St Nicholas stay this execution, who were later slanderously accused before the emperor, who condemned them to death. St Nicholas appeared to Emperor Constantine in a dream and urged him to reverse this sentence, which the emperor did. |
| 35. These 570 things being then refuted, let us also consider the testimony of the Scriptures of the Divinity, and the spotless and truth-loving manner of the Disciples, of our Saviour. Any one therefore, who chooses (to exercise) a sound mind, may hence see, that they were worthy of all dignity, since they confessed that they were mean and unlettered in their discourse, and betook themselves to a love for the doctrine of the worship of God, and of philosophy. They also desired the life, capable of submitting to sufferings, and afflicted by fasting, (by) abstinence from wine and from flesh, and (by) many other humiliating things of the body; by prayer and supplication to God, and more particularly by temperance, and the chief holiness of body. and soul. And, Who is not astonished at this, that they should, for the sake of the excellency of wisdom, have even separated themselves from the wives that had been lawfully given to them? and that they were led by no natural desire, and subdued by no love of children; since they desired not the children that were mortal, but those which were immortal? And, How can any one fail to wonder at this their character, that they desired no money? or (How) imagine this, that they fled not from, but loved, a Teacher who despised the possessions of gold and silver? and the Lawgiver, who laid it down that they should not enlarge their possessions even to two coats 571 ? which any one hearing, would doubtless seek excuse from its severe requirements; while they were seen to act upon it, even to the letter! For, upon a certain occasion a lame man--one of those who begged, on account of the extreme doubt as to provision,--asked (alms) of those who were about Simon Peter: and, when Simon Peter had nothing that he could give, he confessed that he was destitute (lit. clean) of every sort of possession of silver and gold, and said, »Silver and gold have I none 572 .« After this he brought forth the precious name,--which is of all things the most precious,--and said, «This which I have give I to thee. In the name of Jesus the Christ, arise and walk.» |
| 953) Believe and trust that as it is easy for you to breathe the air and live by it, or to eat and drink, so it is easy and even still easier for your faith to receive all spiritual gifts from the Lord. Prayer is the breathing of the soul; prayer is our spiritual food and drink. 954) To you, a pastor of men, the Lord has given to see how cruel the mental wolf is, in order, among other reasons, that you should strenuously endeavor to save both yourself from his claws and jaws and also the flock entrusted to you by God. Begin, therefore, from now to teach them with special power, in the like manner as the Lord Himself taught, and show them how unceasingly this wolf hunts them, and through what he catches them: how he flatters their sensuality so that they may sin more easily and willingly; how many do not understand his flattery, how many serve him willingly–for instance, by gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, and adultery; covetousness, pride, vanity, malice, envy, scoffing at sacred things, slothfulness, bad language, idle speaking, mocking, a passion for dress, for dancing, a passion for theaters, cards, etc. 955) Everyone busies himself with elegant and clean clothing for the body, everyone tries to dress with taste and elegance, but who thinks of the incorruptible raiment, which is all defiled with sins, and in which we all shall have to appear before God the Judge? Who washes it with tears of repentance, with works of mercy, adorns it by fasting, prayer, watchfulness, and pious meditation? 956) «Make us glad according to the days wherein You hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.» 763 The merciful Lord, having punished us, forgives us afterwards by His temporal and eternal mercy. Sometimes a sick person suffers a long while from his malady, as from a wicked tyrant; but during this malady his soul is purified like gold; he obtains the freedom of God " s children, and is deemed worthy of eternal peace and blessedness. 957) Without trial, even common iron appears to be steel; tin appears to be silver, or an alloy of silver appears to be real silver; bronze appears to be gold, gold mixed with earth pure gold, and common glass a diamond. Only testing proves the real worth of these materials. So it is also with men. By their appearance many seem meek and humble, merciful, kind, simple, chaste, believing, etc., but trial often proves that they are evil, proud, bard-hearted, impure, avaricious, greedy, envious, rancorous, lazy, etc. Men are tried through privations and losses, sorrows, sicknesses, dishonor; and those who stand the trial are fit for the kingdom of God; while those who do not stand the trial are unfit, because a great admixture of evil remains in them. |
| A short time later, a large church was built and dedicated to St Nicholas, and the two boxes containing his relics were transferred to it from the Church of St John, where they remain to this day (this event is commemorated on 20th May/2nd Chrism continues to flow from the saint " s relics, as it has for centuries. Parish of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker , Oxford, England 21 мая 2012 г. According to another version, he enclosed the gold coins in an old stocking; hence the origin of the tradition of Christmas stockings filled with gifts. By some accounts, the man and his third daughter stayed up during the night to await their mysterious benefactor, and encountered Fr Nicholas making his gift. Nicholas requested that his identity be kept secret. In this expanded tradition, the father is said to have proclaimed, after receiving St Nicholas " second offering of gold: " O merciful God, author of our salvation, who has redeemed me by your own blood and now redeems by gold my home and my daughters from the nets of the enemy, do you yourself show me the minister of your mercy and your philanthropic goodness. Show me this earthly angel who preserves us from sinful perdition, so that I might know who has snatched us from the poverty which oppresses us from evil thoughts and intentions. O Lord, by your mercy secretly done for me by the generous hand of your servant unknown to me, I can give my second daughter lawfully into marriage and with this escape the snares of the devil, who desired by a tainted gain, or even without it, to increase my great ruin. " Following this prayer, the identity of St Nicholas is revealed to him on his third visit. There is a widespread tradition that, at one of the churches in Jerusalem, the closed doors miraculously opened for the saint, allowing him unhindered entrance to reverence the holy site. According to some accounts, the message was somewhat more brief: " Nicholas, this is not the vineyard in which you shall bear fruit for me. Return to the world, and there glorify my Name. " |
| Continuing on her way, on one occasion the holy pilgrim was overcome with fatigue, sat down on a rock, and began to wonder: where was the Lord leading her? What would be the fruits of her labors? And might not such a long and such a difficult pilgrimage be in vain? As she was considering these things, she fell asleep and had a dream: there appeared to her a man majestic in appearance. His hair fell to his shoulders, and in his hands he held scroll. He unrolled the scroll and gave it to Nina, commanding her to read it, and then suddenly became visible. On awakening from sleep and seeing in her hand the miraculous scroll, St. Nina read in it the following Gospel verses: Strengthened by this divine vision and consolation, St. Nina continued her journey with renewed fervor. Having overcome difficult labors, hunger, thirst, and fear of the wild animals, she reached the ancient Kartlian city of Urbnisi where she remained about a month, living in Jewish homes and studying the manners, customs, and language of a people new and unfamiliar to her. On one occasion, when all the men of that city as well as many from the surrounding areas were planning to go to the capital city of Mtskheta to worship their false gods, St. Nina decided to go with them. As they were approaching the city, they met the entourage of King Mirian and Queen Nana. Accompanied by a great crowd of people, they were making their way to a mountaintop opposite the city where they intended to worship the lifeless idol Armazi. Till noon the weather remained clear. But this day, the first day of St. Nina " s arrival at the city, which was the goal of her mission to save Iberia, was the last day of power for the pagan idol. Borne along by the crowd, St. Nina made her way to the place where the idol " s altar was located. She caught sight of the chief idol Armazi. In appearance he resembled a man of unusually great height; cast of gilded copper, he was clad in a gold coat of mail with a gold helmet on his head. One eye was a ruby, the other an emerald, both of uncommon size and brilliance. To the right of Armazi stood another smaller gold idol by the name of Katsi, and to the left, a silver idol called Gaim. |
| For she who spent the two mites was poorer than all men, and yet surpassed all. Luke 21:2–4 Let us not then consider wealth to be anything great, nor gold to be better than clay. For the value of material things is not owing to their nature, but to our estimate of them. For if any one would inquire carefully, iron is much more necessary than gold. For the one contributes to no need of our life, but the other has furnished us with the greater part of our needs, ministering to countless arts; and why do I speak of a comparison between gold and iron? For these stones are more necessary than precious stones. For of those nothing serviceable could be made, but out of these, houses and walls and cities are erected. But do thou show me what gain could be derived from these pearls, rather what harm would not happen? For in order that you may wear one pearl drop, countless poor people are pinched with hunger. What excuse will you hit upon? What pardon? Do you wish to adorn your face? Do so not with pearls, but with modesty, and dignity. So your countenance will be more full of grace in the eyes of your husband. For the other kind of adorning is wont to plunge him into a suspicion of jealousy, and into enmity, quarrelsomeness and strife, for nothing is more annoying than a face which is suspected. But the ornament of compassion and modesty casts out all evil suspicion, and will draw your partner to you more strongly than any bond. For natural beauty does not impart such comeliness to the face as does the disposition of him who beholds it, and nothing is so wont to produce that disposition as modesty and dignity; so that if any woman be comely, and her husband be ill affected towards her, she appears to him the most worthless of all women; and if she do not happen to be fair of face, but her husband be well affected towards her, she appears more comely than all. For sentence is given not according to the nature of what is beheld, but according to the disposition of the beholders. |
| Moreover, as every being is capable of attracting its like, and humanity is, in a way, like God, as bearing within itself some resemblances to its Prototype, the soul is by a strict necessity attracted to the kindred Deity. In fact what belongs to God must by all means and at any cost be preserved for Him. If, then, on the one hand, the soul is unencumbered with superfluities and no trouble connected with the body presses it down, its advance towards Him Who draws it to Himself is sweet and congenial. But suppose , on the other hand, that it has been transfixed with the nails of propension so as to be held down to a habit connected with material things – a case like that of those in the ruins caused by earthquakes, whose bodies are crushed by the mounds of rubbish; and let us imagine by way of illustration that these are not only pressed down by the weight of the ruins, but have been pierced as well with some spikes and splinters discovered with them in the rubbish. What then, would naturally be the plight of those bodies, when they were being dragged by relatives from the ruins to receive the holy rites of burial, mangled and torn entirely, disfigured in the most direful manner conceivable, with the nails beneath the heap harrowing them by the very violence necessary to pull them out?– Such I think is the plight of the soul as well when the Divine force, for God " s very love of man, drags that which belongs to Him from the ruins of the irrational and material. Not in hatred or revenge for a wicked life, to my thinking, does God bring upon sinners those painful dispensations; He is only claiming and drawing to Himself whatever, to please Him, came into existence. But while He for a noble end is attracting the soul to Himself, the Fountain of all Blessedness, it is the occasion necessarily to the being so attracted of a state of torture. Just as those who refine gold from the dross which it contains not only get this base alloy to melt in the fire, but are obliged to melt the pure gold along with the alloy, and then while this last is being consumed the gold remains, so, while evil is being consumed in the purgatorial fire, the soul that is welded to this evil must inevitably be in the fire too, until the spurious material alloy is consumed and annihilated by this fire. |
| On and on went the two Woodcutters, blowing lustily upon their fingers, and stamping with their huge iron-shod boots upon the caked snow. Once they sank into a deep drift, and came out as white as millers are, when the stones are grinding; and once they slipped on the hard smooth ice where the marsh-water was frozen, and their faggots tell out of their bundles, and they had to pick them up and bind them together again; and once they thought that they had lost their way, and a great terror seized on them, for they knew that the Snow is cruel to those who sleep in her arms. But they put their trust in the good Saint Martin, who watches over all travellers, and retraced their steps, and went warily, and at last they reached the outskirts of the forest, and saw, far down in the valley beneath them, the lights of the village in which they dwelt. So overjoyed were they at their deliverance that they laughed aloud, and the Earth seemed to them like a flower of silver, and the Moon like a flower of gold. Yet, after that they had laughed they became sad, for they remembered their poverty, and one of them said to the other, ‘Why did we make merry, seeing that life is for the rich, and not for such as we are? Better that we had died of cold in the forest, or that some wild beast had fallen upon us and slain us.’ ‘Truly,’ answered his companion, much is given to some, and little is given to others. Injustice has parcelled out the world, nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow.’ But as they were bewailing their misery to each other this strange thing happened. There fell from heaven a very bright and beautiful star. It slipped down the side of the sky, passing by the other stars in its course, and, as they watched it wondering, it seemed to them to sink behind a clump of willow-trees that stood hard by a little sheep-fold no more than a stone’s throw away. ‘Why! there is a crock of gold for whoever finds it,’ they cried, and they set to and ran, so eager were they for the gold. |
| St. Gregory of Nyssa takes a noteworthy approach to this question. Not in hatred or revenge for a wicked life, to my thinking, does God bring upon sinners those painful dispensations; He is only claiming and drawing to Himself whatever, to please Him, came into existence. But while He for a noble end is attracting the soul to Himself, the Fountain of all Blessedness, it is the occasion necessarily to the being so attracted of a state of torture. Just as those who refine gold from the dross which it contains not only get this base alloy to melt in the fire, but are obliged to melt the pure gold along with the alloy, and then while this last is being consumed the gold remains, so, while evil is being consumed in the purgatorial fire, the soul that is welded to this evil must inevitably be in the fire too, until the spurious material alloy is consumed and annihilated by this fire…. …In any and every case evil must be removed out of existence, so that, as we said above, the absolutely non-existent should cease to be at all. Since it is not in its nature that evil should exist outside the will, does it not follow that when it shall be that every will rests in God, evil will be reduced to complete annihilation, owing to no receptacle being left for it? St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection In this treatment, the saint (called the “Father of Fathers” by the Seventh Council) treats the import of the story of judgment as a story within each soul rather than a story of one soul versus another. The judgment, a separation, is a separation of the good and evil that resides in the heart of every human being. It is, in effect, God’s rescue of His enslaved creation. I am not here arguing for or against the Father of Fathers. Rather, I am allowing him to help me think about the perplexing reality of sheep and goats. For in our experience, the sheep and goats seem to have interbred in such a manner than cannot be distinguished from the outside. Perhaps it is truly that some are really goats at heart, while others are sheep. And that when they stand face-to-face before Christ, they will somehow reveal their true nature. But this contradicts St. Gregory’s point. We are, he notes, by nature desirous of God. The judgment, he says, is the destruction of that which is not truly our nature. We are freed to become what we truly are. |
| There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of ‘Heaven’ ridiculous by saying they do not want ‘to spend eternity playing harps’. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs. Faith I must talk in this chapter about what the Christians call Faith. Roughly speaking, the word Faith seems to be used by Christians in two senses or on two levels, and I will take them in turn. In the first sense it means simply Belief – accepting or regarding as true the doctrines of Christianity. That is fairly simple. But what does puzzle people – at least it used to puzzle me – is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as a virtue. I used to ask how on earth it can be a virtue – what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid. Well, I think I still take that view. |
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