A Story for the Feast of St. Basil

This is a delightful story written by Photios Kontoglou for the New Year, the Feast of Saint Basil and an unknown Saint named John.  May the prayers of the Renowned Basil and the Hidden Saint be with you throughout the upcoming year.  http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/john-the-blessed-kontoglou.pdf

Saint Ephraim the Syrian

The Following linlk is to a series of Hymns on the Nativity of Christ by Saint Ephraim the Syrian:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf213.iii.v.ii.html

Enjoy and feel free to comment on how you think these hymns might relate to Saint Gregory the Theologians Homily on Theophany.

St. Gregory the Theologian's Homily on Theophany & The Christmas Carol

The following link is to St. Gregory's Homily on the Theophany of Christ.  It is not known whether this homily was delivered on the 25th of December or the 6th of January.  Originally the Birth of Christ was celebrated on the 6th together with our Lord's baptism.  Beginning during the time of St. Constantine the nativity began to be celebrated as a distinct feast on the 25th.  This transfer of the feast was a gradual process and it is therefore not clear if this practice of the Nativity celebration on the 25th of December was that which St. Gregory kept.  As a small aside it is interesting to note that in the Armenian Orthodox Church the Nativity and Epiphany continue to be a joint feast held on the 6th of January.  This presumably because the Armenian kingdom adopted Christianity before the conversion of Konstantine whom the transfer of the nativity is attributed.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.iii.xxi.html

The following Link is to a site where you can download the complete text of Charles Dickens's the Christmas Carol.
http://manybooks.net/titles/dickenscetext92carol13.html

Enjoy both texts and if you get a chance we would love to hear your thoughts on how the two texts compliment one another and what you think there essential difference is.
 Καλά Χριστούγεννα!

Ante-Nicene Christianity: Creation, Incarnation, and θέωσις

Theophilus of Antioch

The Nature of Man

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.iv.ii.ii.xxvii.html

We Shall See God When We Put on Immortality

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.iv.ii.i.vii.html

Iraneaus of Lyons

Jesus Christ was not a mere man, begotten from Joseph in the ordinary course of nature, but was very God, begotten of the Father most high, and very man, born of the Virgin.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.xx.html

Christ assumed actual flesh, conceived and born of the Virgin.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.xxiii.html

Explanation of the words of Christ, "No man knoweth the Father, but the Son," etc.; which words the heretics misinterpret. Proof that, by the Father revealing the Son, and by the Son being revealed, the Father was never unknown.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vi.vii.html

Why man was not made perfect from the beginning.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vi.xxxix.html

When Christ visited us in His grace, He did not come to what did not belong to Him: also, by shedding His true blood for us, and exhibiting to us His true flesh in the Eucharist, He conferred upon our flesh the capacity of salvation.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vii.iii.html

The power and glory of God shine forth in the weakness of human flesh, as He will render our body a participator of the resurrection and of immortality, although He has formed it from the dust of the earth; He will also bestow upon it the enjoyment of immortality, just as He grants it this short life in common with the soul.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vii.iv.html

Inasmuch as Christ did rise in our flesh, it follows that we shall be also raised in the same; since the resurrection promised to us should not be referred to spirits naturally immortal, but to bodies in themselves mortal.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vii.viii.html

Catechism of St. Gregory of Nyssa

The readings are taken from St. Gregory of Nyssa's Catechism.  St. Gregory of Nyssa, the third and youngest of the Cappadocians (in fact he was St. Basil's little brother!), is, of the three, the most difficult and complex.  Despite his complexity of thought, his highly philosophical language, and the overall difficulty of following his speech, buried within nearly all of his writing are to be found some of the most shockingly vivid images by which he seeks to initiate his hearers into the great Mystery of the Truth. These chapters deal spcifically with Christ's death, descent, and Resurrection.

XXIV http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.xi.ii.xxvi.html

XXV http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.xi.ii.xxvii.html

XXVI http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.xi.ii.xxviii.html
Other fascinating passages from St. Gregory of Nyssa's Catechism

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.xi.ii.xxxvii.html

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.xi.ii.xxxix.html

Excerpt from Fr. Geroge Florovsky on St. Gregory's understanding of the Eucharist:

The Eucharist and the Christian Life.

The summit of Christian life is the sacrament of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the food of incorruptibility, the antidote against the poison of death and the "all-healing power." "Our nature had tasted of something ruinous to it and hence we necessarily needed something that would save from decay that which had been destroyed." This antidote is that Body "which proved Itself to be stronger than death," which arose and was glorified. How is it possible that a single body which is separated into portions and distributed to the faithful does not remain divided but, on the contrary, reunites those who have been separated, "becomes whole in each of its portions and thus endures in each who receives it as a whole?"

Gregory answers by comparing the Eucharist to the food which nourishes the physical body. "The Word of God," he writes, "entered into union with human nature. When the Word lived in a body like ours He did not make any innovations in man's physical constitution but He nourished His own body by the customary and proper means and maintained its existence through eating and drinking . . . His body was maintained by bread and thus His body was once bread in reality. This bread was consecrated by the Word dwelling within the body. Therefore, for the same reason as that by which the bread in His body was transformed and received a Divine potency, so now a similar result takes place. For in that case the grace of the Word sanctified the body, the substance of which came from the bread, and so in a way the body which was sanctified was itself bread. So also in this case our bread, in the words of the Apostle, is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:5), not in such a way that by the process of eating it becomes the Body of the Word but it is changed into the Body of the Word at once."

The Eucharist and the First Stage of Resurrection.

Thus, the flesh which had contained the Word of God receives again a portion of its "own substance," and through this portion this substance "is communicated to every believer and blends it self with their bodies, so that by this union with the immortal, man too shares in incorruptibility." Through the sacrament of the Eucharist all humanity is reunited in Christ and is resurrected. This is, however, only the first stage of resurrection. The Savior's victory over corruption and death is completely accomplished only at the last great resurrection of all mankind.

Ἅγιος Νικόλαος Καβάσιλας

Ὁ δὲ Σωτὴρ τοῖς ἐν αὐτῷ ζῶσιν οὕτως ἀεὶ καὶ
κατὰ πάντα σύνεστι τρόπον, ὥστε πᾶσαν χρείαν παρέχει,
κατὰ πάντα σύνεστι τρόπον, ὥστε πᾶσαν χρείαν παρέχει,
καὶ πάντα αὐτοῖς ἐστι, καὶ οὐκ ἐᾷ πρὸς ἄλλο τι τῶν πάντων
ἰδεῖν οὐδὲ ζητεῖν ἑτέρωθεν οὐδέν· οὐ γάρ ἐστιν οὗ δεηθεῖσιν,
ὅπερ οὐκ αὐτός ἐστι τοῖς ἁγίοις. Καὶ γεννᾷ γάρ, καὶ

αὔξει, καὶ τρέφει, καὶ φῶς ἐστι καὶ πνοή. Καὶ πλάττει
μὲν αὐτοῖς ὀφθαλμόν, ἑαυτῷ· φωτίζει δὲ ἑαυτῷ πάλιν·
παρέχει δὲ ὁρᾷν ἑαυτόν. Καὶ τροφεὺς ὤν, καὶ τροφή ἐστι·
καὶ αὐτὸς μέν ἐστι ὁ παρέχων «τὸν ἄρτον τῆς ζωῆς»,
αὐτὸς δέ ἐστιν ὃ παρέχει. Καὶ ζωὴ μέν ἐστι ζῶσιν,
ἀναπνέουσι δὲ μύρον, ἱμάτιον δὲ ἐνδύσασθαι βουλομένοις.
Καὶ μὴν αὐτὸς μέν ἐστιν ᾧ δυνάμεθα βαδίζειν, αὐτὸς δέ
ἐστιν ἡ ὁδός, καὶ πρός γε ἔτι τὸ κατάλυμα τῆς ὁδοῦ καὶ
τὸ πέρας. Μέλη ἐσμέν, ἐκεῖνος κεφαλή. Ἀγωνίζεσθαι δέον,
συναγωνίζεται· εὐδοκιμοῦσιν, ἀγωνοθέτης ἐστί· νικῶμεν,
στέφανος ἐκεῖνος εὐθύς.

Τοῦ σοφωτάτου Νικολάου Καβάσιλα τοῦ καὶ Χαμαετοῦ
Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ζωῆς
Α´

 

The Anagogical Interpretation of Sacred Scripture

39 But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." -Matthew 12

1 Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven pillars. 2 She has slaughtered her beasts, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table. 3 She has sent out her maids to call from the highest places in the town, 4 "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!" To him who is without sense she says, 5 "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. –Proverbs 9

Christ, he means, the wisdom and power of God the Father, hath built His house, i.e., His nature in the flesh derived from the Virgin, even as he (John) hath said beforetime, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” As likewise the wise prophet  testifies:  Wisdom that was before the world, and is the source of life, the infinite “Wisdom of God, hath built her house” by a mother who knew no man,—to wit, as He assumed the temple of the body. “And hath raised her seven pillars;” that is, the fragrant grace of the all-holy Spirit, as Isaiah says: “And the seven spirits of God shall rest upon Him.” But others say that the seven pillars are the seven divine orders which sustain the creation by His holy and inspired teaching; to wit, the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, the hierarchs, the hermits, the saints, and the righteous. And the phrase, “She hath killed her beasts,” denotes the prophets and martyrs who in every city and country are slain like sheep every day by the unbelieving, in behalf of the truth, and cry aloud, “For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we were counted as sheep for the slaughter.” And again, “She hath mingled her wine” in the bowl, by which is meant, that the Savior, uniting his Godhead, like pure wine, with the flesh in the Virgin, was born of her at once God and man without confusion of the one in the other. “And she hath furnished her table:” that denotes the promised knowledge of the Holy Trinity; it also refers to His honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper. And again, “She hath sent forth her servants:” Wisdom, that is to say, has done so—Christ, to wit—summoning them with lofty announcement. “Whoso is simple, Let him turn to me,” she says, alluding manifestly to the holy apostles, who traversed the whole world, and called the nations to the knowledge of Him in truth, with their lofty and divine preaching. And again, “And to those that want understanding she said”—that is, to those who have not yet obtained the power of the Holy Ghost—“Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you;” by which is meant, that He gave His divine flesh and honored blood to us, to eat and to drink it for the remission of sins.

 -Saint Hyppolytos of Rome

From Saint Maximos
Everyone who does not apply himself to the spiritual contemplation of Holy Scripture has, Judaic-wise, also rejected both the natural and the written law; and he is ignorant of the law of grace which confers deification on those who are obedient to it.  He who understands the written law in a literal manner does not nourish his soul with the virtues. He who does not grasp the inner principles of created beings fails to feast his intellect on the manifold wisdom of God. And he who is ignorant of the great mystery of the new grace does not rejoice in the hope of future deification. Thus failure to contemplate the written law spiritually results in a dearth of the divine wisdom to be apprehended in the natural law; and this in its turn is followed by a complete ignorance of the deification given by grace according to the new mystery. (Pg. 267 Philokalia Vol. II)

Hence a person who seeks God with true devotion should not be dominated by the literal text, lest he unwittingly receives not God but things appertaining to God; that is, lest he feel a dangerous affection for the words of scripture instead of for the Logos. (Pg. 155 Philokalia Vol. II)