| This will take place after four hundred and forty years have elapsed; and then the same soul and the same body, which were formerly united in the person, shall again be reunited.This Varro, indeed, or those nameless astrologers, – for he does not give us the names of the men whose statement he cites – have affirmed what is indeed not altogether true; for once the souls have returned to the bodies they wore, they shall never afterwards leave them. Yet what they say upsets and demolishes much of that idle talk of our adversaries about the impossibility of the resurrection. For those who have been or are of this opinion, have not thought it possible that bodies which have dissolved into air, or dust, or ashes, or water, or into the bodies of the beasts or even of the men that fed on them, should be restored again to that which they formerly were. And therefore, if Plato and Porphyry, or rather, if their disciples now living, agree with us that holy souls shall return to the body, as Plato says, and that, nevertheless, they shall not return to misery, as Porphyry maintains, – if they accept the consequence of these two propositions which is taught by the Christian faith, that they shall receive bodies in which they may live eternally without suffering any misery – let them also adopt from Varro the opinion that they shall return to the same bodies as they were formerly in, and thus the whole question of the eternal resurrection of the body shall be resolved out of their own mouths. Chapter 29.– Of the Beatific Vision. And now let us consider, with such ability as God may vouchsafe, how the saints shall be employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, and when the flesh shall live no longer in a fleshly but a spiritual fashion. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a loss to understand the nature of that employment, or, shall I rather say, repose and ease, for it has never come within the range of my bodily senses. And if I should speak of my mind or understanding, what is our understanding in comparison of its excellence? For then shall be that peace of God which, as the apostle says, passes all understanding, Philippians 4:7 – that is to say, all human, and perhaps all angelic understanding, but certainly not the divine. |
| Для обозначения общего и частного в триедином бытии Бога отцы Церкви использовали также понятие «свойство», проводя различение между общими и особенными (т. е. ипостасными: ποστατικα διτητες - Ioan. Damasc. De fide orth. I 8) свойствами Божественных Лиц. Каждое Лицо Св. Троицы имеет свое особенное свойство, к-рое отличает его от других Лиц: «Усматриваемая в каждой Ипостаси особенность (διτης) явно и чисто отличает одну [Ипостась] от другой» ( Greg. Nyss. Contr. Eun. I 278). Понятие «особенного свойства» в триадологическом контексте стало синонимом понятия «ипостась». Так, свт. Григорий Богослов говорил об Отце, Сыне и Св. Духе как о «трех особенных свойствах» Бога ( Greg. Nazianz. Or. 34//PG. Vol. 36. Col. 253). В творениях св. отцов встречается также выражение «особенное свойство ипостаси» (διτης τς ποστσεως - Greg. Nyss. Ad Graec.//GNO. Bd. 3. H. 1. S. 26), которое позволяло им определять И. как «совокупность особенных свойств» (συνδρομ τν περ καστον διωμτων; συνδρομ τν χαρακτηριστικν διωμτων - Ioan. Damasc. Fragm. philos. 12). Не менее важной характеристикой И. является ее самостоятельность, самобытность (τ φεστναι), так что И. есть не просто «собрание отличительных свойств», но самостоятельно существующая вещь (τ φεστς πργμα), единичное ( καθ καστον), подлежащее (ποκεμενον), т. е. нечто реальное, обладающее этими отличительными свойствами (см.: Greg. Nyss. Or. catech. 1-2; Idem. Contr. Eun. I 1. 498; II 1. 353, 356, 538; III 8. 25; Idem. De diff. essent. et hypost. 3. 5-12). Наряду с особыми свойствами Божественные Ипостаси имеют также общие свойства. Свт. Григорий, еп. Нисский, выделял, напр., такое общее свойство трех Ипостасей, как несотворенность: «Несотворенное Естество, созерцаемое в крайнем совершенстве и непостижимом превосходстве, сообразно отличительным свойствам, какие есть у каждой Ипостаси, имеет неслитную и совершенную разность, [то есть] по общению в несотворенности (ν τ κατ τ κτιστον κοινων) имеет неразличимость, а сообразно исключительным свойствам каждого Лица - несообщаемость» ( Greg. Nyss. Contr. Eun. I 277). Еще одно общее свойство Ипостасей Святой Троицы - быть началом твари. Т. о., в триадологическом контексте у термина «ипостась» сохраняется одно из классических значений - первопричина, начало, корень. Так, свт. Василий Великий называл Ипостаси Св. Троицы «начальными» (ρχικ); в «Ареопагитиках» говорится о трех Божественных Ипостасях как «единоначальных» (κστη τν ναρχικν ποστσεων) и «богоначальных» (κστη τν θεαρχικν ποστσεων - Areop. DN. II 5). Однако Ипостаси являются началом только по отношению к творению, тогда как в их взаимном отношении сохраняется единоначалие Отца, Который является началом для Сына и Святого Духа. Свт. Василий в связи с этим особо подчеркивал, что троичность не отменяет монархичности (т. е. единоначальности) бытия Бога (см.: Basil. Magn. De Spirit. Sanct. 18. 47). |
| к Кор. 223 Это доказательство бессмертия души приведено у св. Епифания Твор. ч. III, стр. 123–126, изд. 1872 г., заимствовавшего его у св. Мефодия из его книги о воскресении. Ср. Иуст. Apol. 1, п. 10. 12. Ириней, Против ересей, II, 342. Афинагор, De resurrect. mort. n. 12. 231 Арновий, Contr. gent. с. 13 и 14: jaciuntur enim et ad nihilum redactae, interitione perpetuae et rustratione vanescunt. 233 Феодорит: Substantia Dei est immortalis non participation eo quod immortalitatem non aliunde accipit. 237 Иустин, Разгов. с Трифоном, гл. 5, стр. 159-я. Перев. Преображенского. Златоуст, 9-я бес. на 1 Кор. стр. 170, русск. перев. 1859 г. 239 Златоуст, Слово к Феод. падш. во Христ. изд. 1844 г. ч. I, стр. 366. Образ этого неугасимого огня Златоуст указывает в солнце, всегда горящем и никогда не угасающем, или, подобно М. Феликсу , в купине горящей и не сгораемой. Не отожествляя его с внутренними мчениями, как думал о нем напр. Ориген (Contr. C. c. V, п. 14), церковные писатели и отцы церкви, как напр. бл. Августин, св. Григорий Нисский , И. Златоуст, И. Дамаскин и др., признают его не огнем вещественным, а – подобно св. Иринею – невидимым, духовным. Август. О граде Божием 20, 16; Григорий нисск. 40-е оглас. слово; Злат. Слово к Феод. падш., в Христ. 1844 г. ч. I, стр. 366; Дамаск. Изл. прав. веры, кн. IV, гл. 27, стр. 174. Все эти три анафематизма находятся в «Слове» императора Юстиниана, посланном к константинопольскому патриарху Миине, «против нечстивого Оригена и непотребных его мнений»; об этом послании упоминает Либерат (гл. 23 Breiar.), по свидетельству которого оно составлено по настоянию Пелагия, диакона римской церкви и апокрисиария, а потом одобрено папою Вигилием (см. парижское издание актов этого собора Лаббе, примеч.). В подлиннике оно имеется на греческом и латинском языках. По мнению одних (Oswald-Eschatologie, S. 70, в прим.) эти анафематизмы первоначально утверждены константинопольским патриархом на частном соборе (σνοδος νδημοσα) в 543 году. А так как Никифор Каллист (t. |
| I received an e-mail from someone asking advice on how to find a spiritual father. I had to tell him that finding a spiritual father, in one sense, is very difficult and may take a lifetime. In fact, if by finding a spiritual father he means that he is looking for a relationship with a spiritual mentor that is like what one reads about in the Philokalia or the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, or in the Ladder of Divine Ascent, then I would have to say that it is almost impossible to find a spiritual father. On the other hand, and in another sense, it is very easy to find a spiritual father or mother. Finding a spiritual mentor in this sense has mostly to do with the seeker’s humility and willingness to be taught, and much less to do with the qualifications of the potential mentor. Let me explain: In the writings of the Holy Fathers, especially the ancient Fathers, we are given as examples to be emulated the many stories of absolute and unquestioning obedience of novices to their spiritual fathers. We are told stories of holy men who submitted unquestioningly and with profound humility to spiritual fathers and who themselves became saints because of that humble submission. We are told of clairvoyant elders, full of love for their spiritual children, who unerringly guided their spiritual children on the path to godlikeness, and we are told of spiritual children suffering harsh consequences as a result of disobeying their spiritual mentors. This tradition of discipleship under a wise and experienced spiritual guide (father or mother as the case may be) is an essential part of our Orthodox Christian tradition and a necessary aspect of our growth and transformation into godliness. However, this way of spiritual fatherhood is much misunderstood these days and consequently–even if unintentionally–sometimes results in unhealthy relationships and even spiritual abuse. In such cases, instead of helping one grow in Christ, a inappropriate or misunderstood relationship with someone whom you consider to be a spiritual father or mother (or with someone who presents themselves as a spiritual father or mother) can result in prolonged spiritual infancy, years of confusion or anger, and even in one turning away from Christ completely. |
| Something similar has occurred in the case of churches dedicated to the Wisdom of God. Instead of honoring the name of Christ as the Wisdom of God, to whom they were dedicated when they were built, they now normally celebrate the feast of Pentecost, or the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Trinity, or the Entry or Dormition of the Mother of God. Or even the martyr Saint Sophia and her three daughters, Faith, Hope and on the year of Leo’s reign the patriarch might have been Fotios the Great (deposed); the younger brother of the emperor, Stefanos, (died seven years later at the ripe old age of 26); Antonios II; Nikolaos Mystikos, that is, ‘the Secretary’; the emperor’s elderly confessor Efthymios; or Nikolaos Mystikos (part 2). All of them were canonized, though in the case of Mystikos we can only assume that people at the time knew more than we do or that later historians deliberately blackened his character. In Greek Ayia Sofia , can mean either ‘Holy Wisdom’ or ‘Saint Sophia’. Code for blog Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir. If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life " s purpose, family and society. Also by this author Today " s Articles Most viewed articles Functionality is temporarily unavailable. Most popular authors Functionality is temporarily unavailable. © 2008-2024 Pravmir.com |
| What numberless casualties threaten our bodies from without – extremes of heat and cold, storms, floods, inundations, lightning, thunder, hail, earthquakes, houses falling; or from the stumbling, or shying, or vice of horses; from countless poisons in fruits, water, air, animals; from the painful or even deadly bites of wild animals; from the madness which a mad dog communicates, so that even the animal which of all others is most gentle and friendly to its own master, becomes an object of intenser fear than a lion or dragon, and the man whom it has by chance infected with this pestilential contagion becomes so rabid, that his parents, wife, children, dread him more than any wild beast! What disasters are suffered by those who travel by land or sea! What man can go out of his own house without being exposed on all hands to unforeseen accidents? Returning home sound in limb, he slips on his own doorstep, breaks his leg, and never recovers. What can seem safer than a man sitting in his chair? Eli the priest fell from his, and broke his neck. How many accidents do farmers, or rather all men, fear that the crops may suffer from the weather, or the soil, or the ravages of destructive animals? Commonly they feel safe when the crops are gathered and housed. Yet, to my certain knowledge, sudden floods have driven the laborers away, and swept the barns clean of the finest harvest. Is innocence a sufficient protection against the various assaults of demons? That no man might think so, even baptized infants, who are certainly unsurpassed in innocence, are sometimes so tormented, that God, who permits it, teaches us hereby to bewail the calamities of this life, and to desire the felicity of the life to come. As to bodily diseases, they are so numerous that they cannot all be contained even in medical books. And in very many, or almost all of them, the cures and remedies are themselves tortures, so that men are delivered from a pain that destroys by a cure that pains. Has not the madness of thirst driven men to drink humanurine, and even their own? Has not hunger driven men to eat human flesh, and that the flesh not of bodies found dead, but of bodies slain for the purpose? Have not the fierce pangs of famine driven mothers to eat their own children, incredibly savage as it seems? In fine, sleep itself, which is justly called repose, how little of repose there sometimes is in it when disturbed with dreams and visions; and with what terror is the wretched mind overwhelmed by the appearances of things which are so presented, and which, as it were so stand out before the senses, that we can not distinguish them from realities! How wretchedly do false appearances distract men in certain diseases! With what astonishing variety of appearances are even healthy men sometimes deceived by evil spirits, who produce these delusions for the sake of perplexing the senses of their victims, if they cannot succeed in seducing them to their side! |
| The Jerusalem Church consisted of Jews and proselytes from various nations. The Churches of Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Rome and all the others were composed of Jews but mainly of Gentiles. Each of these churches formed within itself an integral and indivisible whole. Each recognized as its Apostles the Apostles of Christ, who were all Jews. Each had a bishop installed by these Apostles without any racial discrimination: this is evident in the account of the founding of the first Churches of God. (…) The same system of establishing churches by locality prevails even after the Apostolic period, in the provincial or diocesan churches, which were marked out on the basis of the political organization then prevailing, or of other historical reasons. The congregation of the faithful of each of these churches consisted of Christians of every race and tongue. (…) Paradoxically, the Church of Greece, the Church of Russia, Serbia, Moldavia and so on, or less properly Russian Church, Greek Church etc., mean autocephalous or semi-independent churches within autonomous or semi-independent dominions, with fixed boundaries identical with those of the secular dominions, outside which they have no ecclesiastical jurisdiction. They were composed not on ethnic grounds, but because of a particular situation and do not consist entirely of one race or tongue. Nor has the Orthodox Church ever known racial churches of the same faith and independent of one another to coexist within the same parish, town or country. (…) If we examine those canons on which the Church’s government is constructed, we find nowhere in them any trace of racism. (…) Similarly, the canons of the local churches, when considering the formation, union or division of ecclesiastical groupings, put forward political reasons or ecclesiastical needs, never racial claims. (…) From all this, it is quite clear that racism finds no recognition in the government and sacred legislation of the Church. But the racial principle also undermines the sacred governmental system of the Church. (…) |
| For this reason, it identifies apophaticism with the ‘theology of negations or with the mysticism of affective contemplation (contemplatio) of the ‘absolute’. The West rejected Greek epistemology (ancient and patristic alike), its identification of being true with participation or communion, just as it rejected, too, the ontology of the Church, the distinction between essence and energies, the priority of the personal over the essence, the priority of freedom and otherness over the essential predetermination of the principle of existence. With this twofold rejection – of epistemology and ontology – there is betrayed not only an error of reasoning or defective understanding, but the ‘natural’ human opposition to freedom or the hazard of relationship, the need of natural (individual and not personal) men and women for assured certainties that can be privately grasped as definitive concepts. And if persistence in assurances focused on the individual is a ‘turn towards death’ (alienation of existential relatedness that constitutes and makes up the subject), 129 then we can characterize the theology that emerges from such a persistence as a theology of death, a theology of dead surrogates for life, a theology of a dead God or of the death of God. The empiricism of relationship is expressed in the Areopagitical writings with the definition of participation in the divine energies as the exclusive way to the knowledge of God. We speak of the ‘knowledge of God’ in general, since the divine energies,» to the extent that they reveal to us the otherness of the Hypostases, offer the possibility of a participation in knowledge of what God is universally. And this, because no personal hypostasis (whether divine or human) is a fragment or part of divine or human being, on the contrary, each person recapitulates and expresses the whole mode of being, complete divinity or humanity. Neither divinity nor humanity exist outside the existent hypostases, that is to say, outside the persons. |
| 6467 So also Holwerda, Spirit, 17–24; Hunter, John, 82. 6468 So also, e.g., Hunter, John, 83. 6469 Fenton, John, 93, cites Isa 55:6; cf. also Ezek 7:25–26 ; Hos 5:6 ; Amos 8:12; contrast Deut 4:29 ; Jer 29:13 ; Whitacre, John, 191, adds Prov 1:28–31 . 6470 Hunter, John, 83; Köstenberger, John, 137. 6471 Cf. Robinson, Trust, 88; idem, «Destination.» 6472 E.g., Isocrates Nic. 50, Or. 3.37; Paneg. 108, Or. 4; Helen 67–68, Or. 10; Plato Alc. 2, 141C; Theaet. 175A; Laws 9.870AB; Strabo Geog. 6.1.2; 13.1.1; 15.3.23; Plutarch Agesilaus 10.3; Timoleon 28.2; Eumenes 16.3; Bride 21, Mor. 141A; Dio Chrysostom Or. 1, On Kingship 1, §14; Or. 9, Isthmian Discourse, §12; Or. 12, Olympic Discourse, §§11, 27–28; Or. 31.20; Or. 32.35; Or. 36.43; Sextus Empiricus Eth. 1.15; Diogenes Laertius 6.1.2; Athenaeus Deipn. 11.461b; Tatian 1,21,29. 6473 E.g., Josephus War 5.17; Ant. 1.107; 15.136; 18.20; Ag. Ap. 1.201; 2.39; Philo Cherubim 91; Drunkenness 193; Abraham 267; Moses 2.20; Decalogue 153; Spec. Laws 2.18,20,44,165; 4.120; Good Person 94, 98; Contemp1. Life 21; Embassy 145,292. 6474 E.g., Bar 2:13 ; Tob 13:3; Pss. Sol 8:28; Josephus Ag. Ap. 1.33; Jas 1:1. John also applies the expression to the scattering of believers (10:12; 16:32; cf. Acts 8:1,4; 11:19; 1Pet l:l;perhaps Jas 1:1). 6475 Cf. Brown, John, 1:349. 6476 Talbert, John, 145 (following Lindars). Cf. the repetition some scholars find in the discourses of chs. 6, 14–16. 6477 E.g., Westcott, John, 123; Grigsby, «Thirsts.» 6478 The public part of the procession was in the court of women (Safrai, «Temple,» 866–67, 894–95; for women " s participation, Safrai, «Relations,» 198); processions were also central to pagan religious festivals (Grant, Gods, 53; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 151; SEG 11.923 in Sherk, Empire, 58, §32; Xenophon Eph. 5.11; Chariton 1.1.4–5; Dunand, Religion en Egypte, 96,103; Frankfurter, Religion in Egypt, 52–53; Bleeker, Festivals), including carrying sacred objects (Xenophon Eph. 1.2; Philostratus Vit. soph. 2.20.602). |
| To illustrate briefly what he means, I must begin with his own introductory statement in the above-mentioned book, that there are four things which men desire, as it were by nature without a master, without the help of any instruction, without industry or the art of living which is called virtue, and which is certainly learned: either pleasure, which is an agreeable stirring of the bodily sense; or repose, which excludes every bodily inconvenience; or both these, which Epicurus calls by the one name, pleasure; or the primary objects of nature, which comprehend the things already named and other things, either bodily, such as health, and safety, and integrity of the members, or spiritual, such as the greater and less mental gifts that are found in men. Now these four things – pleasure, repose, the two combined, and the primary objects of nature – exist in us in such sort that we must either desire virtue on their account, or them for the sake of virtue, or both for their own sake; and consequently there arise from this distinction twelve sects, for each is by this consideration tripled. I will illustrate this in one instance, and, having done so, it will not be difficult to understand the others. According, then, as bodily pleasure is subjected, preferred, or united to virtue, there are three sects. It is subjected to virtue when it is chosen as subservient to virtue. Thus it is a duty of virtue to live for one " s country, and for its sake to beget children, neither of which can be done without bodily pleasure. For there is pleasure in eating and drinking, pleasure also in sexual intercourse. But when it is preferred to virtue, it is desired for its own sake, and virtue is chosen only for its sake, and to effect nothing else than the attainment or preservation of bodily pleasure. And this, indeed, is to make life hideous; for where virtue is the slave of pleasure it no longer deserves the name of virtue. Yet even this disgraceful distortion has found some philosophers to patronize and defend it. |
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