Ἦν βροτὸς, ἀλλὰ Θεός. Δαβὶδ γένος, ἀλλ’ Ἀδάμοιο
Πλάστης. Σαρκοφόρος μὲν, ἀτὰρ καὶ σώματος ἐκτός.
Μητρὸς, παρθενικῆς δέ· περίγραφος, ἀλλ’ ἀμέτρητος.
Καὶ φάτνη μὲν ἔδεκτο, Μάγοις δέ τε ἡγεμόνευεν
Ἀστὴρ, δωροφόροι δ’ ἄρ’ ἔβαν, καὶ γούνατ’ ἔκαμψαν.
Ὡς βροτὸς ἦλθ’ ἐπ’ ἀγῶνα, ὑπέρσχεθε δ’ ὡς ἀδάμαστος
Πειραστὴν τρισσοῖσι παλαίσμασιν· εἶδαρ ὑπέστη,
Θρέψε δὲ χιλιάδας, ὕδωρ τ’ εἰς οἶνον ἄμειψε.
Λούσατο, ἀλλ’ ἐκάθηρεν ἁμαρτάδας, ἀλλ’ ἐβοήθη
Πνεύματι βρονταίης φωνῆς ὕπο Υἱὸς Ἀνάρχου·
Ὡς βροτὸς ὕπνον ἔδεκτο, καὶ ὡς Θεὸς εὔνασε πόντον.
Γοῦνα κάμεν, παρέτοις δὲ μένος καὶ γούνατ’ ἔπηξεν.
Εὔξατο· τίς δ’ ἐσάκουσε λιταζομένων ἀμενηνῶν;
Ἦν θύος, ἀρχιερεὺς δέ· θυηπόλος, ἀλλὰ Θεός περ.
Αἷμ’ ἀνέθηκε Θεῷ, κόσμον δ’ ἐκάθηρεν ἅπαντα.
Καὶ σταυρός μιν ἄειρε, πάγη δ’ ἥλοισιν ἁμαρτάς.He was mortal, but God. Descended from David, yet of Adam,
the moulder. Bearing flesh but existed outside the body.
Of a virgin mother, he with bounded form yet measureless.
The manger received him, and for the magi the star
guided, bearing gifts they came, and bent their knees.As mortal he entered the contest, unmastered, he prevailed over
the tempter in three tests. Food was offered,
instead he fed thousands, and water he changed into wine.
He was baptized, but himself purified sins, and the Son
was proclaimed by the Spirit, the voice thundering, as the Lord.As mortal he took sleep, as God, put the ocean to sleep.
His legs toiled yet he made steadfast and strong the legs of paralytics.
He prayed; even he, the one who listens to the prayers of the meek?
He was a sacrifice, yet the chief priest, God himself bearing sacrifice to God.
He lifted his blood to God; He purified the whole cosmos.
The cross lifted him, but he pierced our sins with the nails.- St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Περὶ Υἱοῦ, 62-77)
Περὶ Υἱοῦ (Concerning the Son)
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Worldly Wisdom
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
For [Gregory of Nyssa], the supreme example of how the believer could properly benefit from pagan learning was Moses, who had, according to the Book of Acts [7:22], “‘received a paideia in all the sophia of the Egyptians,’ a powerful speaker and a man of action.” Therefore “the paideia of the outsiders” was not to be shunned, but cultivated. What it imparted, moreover, as the text of Acts conceded, was not nonsense, despite its pagan origins, but an authentic sophia of some kind. (Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture, p. 10)
Poetry and History
Monday, January 10, 2011
Indeed the writings of Herodotus could be put into verse and yet would still be a kind of history, whether written in metre or not. The real difference is this, that one tells what happened and the other what might happen. For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.
- Aristotle (Poetics 1451b.1, tr. W.H. Fyfe)
Walk Slowly
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
βαδιζέτω ἐπὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν τὴν ἐγγράφως τὰ ἄγραφα δηλοῦσαν… (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.1.10.2-3)
Let him walk slowly upon the truth which in writing makes clear unwritten things.
A Little Admonition from Barth
Friday, April 10, 2009
Many Churches in this sense imply many Lords, many Spirits, many Gods. There is no question about it: to the degree to which Christendom exists in Churches which are really different and opposed to each other, to that degree she is denying in practice what she acknowledges in theory, the unity and uniqueness of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost.
Whatever good reasons there may be for the beginning of such schisms, whatever serious obstacles there may be to ending them, whatever interpretations and extenuations may be made of them, nothing alters the fact that every schism is as such a dark riddle, a scandal.
And in regard to this scandal, the whole of Christendom ought at least to be one in this, that we can think of it only as a constant subject of repentance, and not, on any of our parts, a repentance to be expected from others, but one in which we are willing to go meet the others, cost what it may.
Anyone who is prepared to come to terms with schism in the Church, anyone capable of being at ease with it, anyone to whom the sight of the obvious faults and errors in the other side, and hence their responsibility for it, provides a reason for being tranquil about it, may be a good, loyal believer in some sense that belongs to his particular denomination — a good Roman or Calvinist or Orthodox or Baptist– but he must not think that he can possibly be a good Christian.
Adler on Philosophy after Christianity
Friday, March 20, 2009
Modern gnosticism results from the efforts of thinkers to answer purely theological questions by merely natural means. The theodicy of Spinoza, the knowledge of the Absolute in Hegel, the discussion of the order of the universe in time and space by Whitehead, are examples of philosophy exceeding its domain. Though lacking faith, these philosophers do not seem able to regain the position of natural reason in Greek antiquity. Christianity has somehow been too much for them. When we learn that Hegel’s formative influences were theology and the classics, we can see the root of all his confusions. In a paradoxical sense, then, all modern philosophers are Christian, even when they are skeptical, as Hume, or agnostic, as Kant. Christianity has made problems for them which they cannot solve without faith, but which they will not refrain from discussing in rational terms.
Solovyov On Love
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The meaning and worth of love as a feeling is that it really forces us, with all our being, to acknowledge for another the same absolute significance that, because of the power of egoism, we are conscious of only in our own selves. Love is important, not only as one of our feelings but as the transfer of all our interest in life from ourselves to another, as the shifting of the very center of our lives….
- Vladimir Solovyov
Kafka On Parables
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says: “Go over,” he does not mean that we should cross over to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labor were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.
Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid yourself of all your daily cares.
Another said: I bet that is also a parable.
The first said: You have won.
The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.
The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.
Child and Philosopher
Monday, September 15, 2008
Children complicate life, but so sweetly that they should serve to give the worker fresh courage rather than to lessen his resources. The little ones take much of you, and what good would they be if they did not now and then tease and tax you? But they hearten you just as much, and perhaps more; they can heighten your inspiration by mingling joy with it; they give you a love-lit reflection of nature and of man and thus defend you against the abstract; they bring you back to the real, about which their questioning eyes are waiting for an exact commentary from you. Their pure faces preach integrity, that sister of knowledge; and does not their readiness to believe, to hope, to have great dreams, and to expect everything from the fatherhood that guides them — does not this uplift you also, you man of thought, and give you a motive for hope? You can see an image of God and a sign of our immortal destiny in this image of the future.
– A.G. Sertillanges
Eliot on Reading
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
There never was a time when the reading public was so large, or so helplessly exposed to the influence of its own time. There never was a time when those who read at all, read so many more books by living authors than books by dead authors. There never was a time so completely parochial, so shut off from the past.
–T.S. Eliot