ECF's -Which ones were right?

[Montalban]

Hey, Hey, Hey, haven't you heard that the value of bronze has taken an sharp upturn and has passed gold by five dollars an ounce? Our guys want the bronze.

The US has used the total medal count for years. I remember seeing that when I was young.

Yarddog

They did in Sydney 2000, UNTIL America got passed us with amount of Gold Medals. Because on the very first day of competition we were on top, with the first Gold Medal, but the US used the 'total amount' tally, but then changed this.

So yes, they have used it, but when it suits them.

Just for good measure: (other newpapers around the world who use the total Gold forumla....
Jakarta Post
Japan Times
and of course the China Daily

et al

But I don't want to take this thread off-track. I was just hoping someone could say where they'd like me to stick this

 

[Montalban]

I think you missed the point. The point is, if you are unable to worship God without a device, at least in my opinion, you need to examine the place you PUT that device in.

I think you missed my point when I said it's like worshipping without using one of your senses.

Go to church next time with bits of tissue shoved up your nose to get the "I'll try worshipping without the experience of smell" advantage.

no, no. What I am against is when ECF's are quoted as immutable truth, (something more classically a Catholic practice, rather than EO)

The truth, as you demonstrated with Hitler can be found in a wide variety of places

no... It's that they don't seem to notice he isn't 100% Kosher.

I can't speak for your experiences with Catholics so I don't know what your point is.

that was the point, not that something he said was irrelevant, jus that we are supposed to believe what is said, soley by whom said it.

If they only quoted Origen, that would be true, I suppose, but we here have used a variety of argument - so your counter argument seems to be to suggest another church (the RCC) do something we're not doing here. So I still don't understand your point - unless you were just offering an observation of yours

the vein I'm given so frequently, is "well, Such and such is an ECF and we trust the ECF, so therefore what the ECF says is true so therefore what I'm arguing is true because of what they said." and I'm like "but you also condemned him as a heretic on certain points. So therefore, we CAN'T trust everything he says as neccessary truth, so therefore your argument is not neccessarily valid because of who said it.

I think I've already covered this, but if I haven't, if you've more speific questions, please let me know

take for example, the "greatest olympian ever" claptrap about Michael Phelps. Sure, the guy is winning a scad of medals. And sure, he's the most dominant in his field. What, of course, the American media turns a blind eye to, is that in almost every other sport, the athletes don't even have the opportunity to win more than one medal per year. Some two, some even three... but in swimming, he gets to go again and again and again. He gets 4 to 6 times the chances to garner medals for his performances. Take a boxer... he can get no more than one per olympics. His weight class only, one tourney only.

it's a load of American flagwaving garbage.

I digress.

Sorry, that would be my fault.

 

[Uphill Battle]

feels like Phelps 7th medal is a fraud. Doesn't look like he was the first to touch. media's in a frenzy about how great he is. How he beat out his rival by 1/100th of a second. he didn't touch first, by the cameras. More olympic fixing, perhaps? (I.E., Ice dance, gymnastics, wrestling, et. al.

 

[Thekla]

Originally Posted by Uphill Battle

the vein I'm given so frequently, is "well, Such and such is an ECF and we trust the ECF, so therefore what the ECF says is true so therefore what I'm arguing is true because of what they said." and I'm like "but you also condemned him as a heretic on certain points. So therefore, we CAN'T trust everything he says as neccessary truth, so therefore your argument is not neccessarily valid because of who said it.
​

if I can try:

to start with the example of the Doxology that I used earlier:
This hymn/prayer/confession of faith (the Doxology) is chanted daily. It contains quotes from the scriptures, including the Psalms (which are typically prayed in their entire over the course of one week). Once one has become familiar with the Psalms, each quote from a Psalm in the Doxology calls to mind the 'lesson/experience' of the Psalm it is quoted from. The quote of a Psalm becomes "icon" of the entire Psalm.

Christ is a person - not a bundle of discreet and/or conflicting ideas. Human beings may be a mass of contadictions, but Christ is whole - complete, true, perfect, healthy. It is only in Christ that we become by grace healthy/whole as well; Christ is savior. This is related to the notion of kata-holos; of the whole. The scriptures relate or record for us about Christ.

Anything that is said of Christ, or anything within the Church, is not accurate if it is not kata-holos/of the whole/related back to/arising from Christ. As Christians, all that we know we know through knowing Christ.

There are different 'styles' of understanding scripture, for example the school of Antioch or the school of Alexandria. These ways of understanding may differ, but if they are 'accurate', they must be kata-holos.

Just as the Psalm quotes become icon of the Psalm entire, so the ECFs and Councils where they are kata-holos are in agreement. For example, when St. Gregory Palamas quotes an earlier ECF, he shows that his "idea" is not novel/innovation though his way of saying it may be different. And the ECF St. Gregory quotes, if you look back, has quoted an earlier ECF on this matter. Again, the approach or the words in use may differ, but the idea is not new. And they all of course refer back to scripture. But what they are actually doing is ultimately referring directly to Christ showing about Christ and the experience of Christ.

This is perhaps more easily seen in the Gospels; there are four different accounts. Each account has a "different voice" or style. This does not show, however, four different Christs, but one Christ described by four different authors whose personality has not been erased.

To return to Origen - the Origen that we "keep" are those writings which are "kata-holos". The ECFs are not infallible, but where their writings are 'accurate', when one is referred to, they are "icon" of the entire (being in this case Christ, the Church, the scriptures, the ECFs, the Saints). So when we say, "Origen says", we are saying Origen says in agreement with the whole, meaning in agreement with Christ, who alone is whole and confers wholeness. "Origen says" is, in a sense, a glimpse of the whole, or even icon.

 

[Rick Otto]

Thanks for that, Sista T.
And Pope Otto liked it all, except that this LCS (Late Church Son) reseves the right to take exception to something they might all agree to, if I perceive it as contrary to Christ.
I wouldn't dare to impose this practice on others, so hopefully none will take it as a personal affront.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Reve 2:5 Be remembering then! whence thou hast fallen and reform! and the first works do! If yet no, I am coming to thee swiftly, and shall be moving/kinhsw<2795> (5692) the Lamp-stand/lucnian <3087> of thee out of her Place, if ever no thou should be reforming.

Reve 18:23 And a-light/fwV <5457> of a-Lamp/lucnou <3088> shall not no be appearing in thee still. And a-voice of bridegroom and of bride not no should be being heard in thee still. That the merchants of thee were the great ones/grandees of the land. That in the sorcery of thee were strayed all the Nations,

 

[Anglian]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My thanks to those who pm'd me about the topic of theosis or divinisation. It is a theme which is central to the Eastern understanding of our Faith, but one which has been less so in the West. It is a subject on which the ECFs had much to say, and one which illustrates how they could each use each others' writings to help illuminate the meaning of Holy Scripture.

The first formal definition of the term theosis occurs in the sixth century writings of Dionysius the Areopagite: 'Deification is the attaining of likeness to God and union with Him so far as is possible.' (Patrologia Graecae, 3.376A). But this does not mean it was a late, Hellenistic import which somehow diluted the pure message of the Bible. Not only was it a topic which was discussed within Judaism, it was one which the early Christians inherited from both their Jewish texts and their own earliest writings.

Psalm 82:6 reads: 'I said, you are gods and all of you sons of the most high', and the early Church noted the similarity with the various Pauline verses about becoming 'adopted' sons of God, and becoming 'one in Christ'. Justin Martyr, who was familiar with the rabbinic exegesis on the Psalms, laid claim to the
'gods' for the Church, and Irenaeus, who shared that view, takes it for granted that Christians might be called 'gods' on the authority of Scripture because they have been incorporated into Christ by baptism, thereby attaining a potential immortality.

But in addition to this early interpretation, we see another, less allegorical in nature, coming from Alexandria (that home of allegory). Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome used the verb theopoie_? Literally, this word means 'to make God' or, more politely, 'to make divine'. Clement and Hippolytus assert that the Christian can be called 'a god' because he/she has become like God through the attainment of knowledge (gnosis) and dispassion.

We can see both these approaches - the realistic and the ethical - in use by the Fathers through the third century; the former is expressed in language about participation through the sacraments, especially baptism and the Eucharist, the latter through the language of imitation, relating to the ascetic and contemplative life.

As so often in the life of the early Church, it was only when an interpretation of the word of God which ran counter to the sense of the faithful appeared, that the Church found itself obliged to delve deeper into what certain Scriptural phrases meant. In this case it was Arius' claim that the Son was a creature, and therefore not divine, which forced others to think more closely about what it meant to say that 'God became man so that men might become gods.'

I'll stop there, having outlined the idea and some of its early manifestations. But I'd be happy for us to discuss any of the things here before moving on, later, to deal with the ways in which Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, and St, Cyril, all came to deeper understanding of what it means for us to 'become gods'.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

I'll stop there, having outlined the idea and some of its early manifestations. But I'd be happy for us to discuss any of the things here before moving on, later, to deal with the ways in which Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, and St, Cyril, all came to deeper understanding of what it means for us to 'become gods'.

Peace,

Anglian

Greetings Anglian. I did a translation of those verses in Psalm 82/John 10 and did a google search for summaries of those verses concerning "ye are gods?
This site came up and it appears informative though I didn't really read it thru yet.

http://thriceholy.net/yegods.html

Psalm 82:5 Not they know, and not they are understanding. In darkness they are going about, all of foundations of land are slipping. 6 I, I said gods/'Elohiym ye and sons of the Highest/'elyown all of ye'; 7 Surely as adam ye shall die! And as one of the princes, ye shall fall! 8 Arise thou god/Elohiym! judge thou the land!, that Thou shall allot in all the nations. [John 10:34-36]

John 10:33 Answered to Him the Judeans--"About an ideal work not we are stoning Thee; but about blasphem,--and that Thou a man being, art making thyself a god.
34 Answered to them the JESUS-"Is Not it is having been Written in the law of ye that I say 'I said gods ye are'? 35 If those He said gods toward whom the Word of the God became and not is able to be broken/annulled the Writing 36 whom the Father hallows and commissions into the World ye are saying that 'Thou are blaspheming' that I said 'Son of the God I am'"

 

[Anglian]

Dear LLOJ,

Thanks for the help here.

A key text here, along with Psalm 82:6 is 2 Peter 1:4

4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. (2Peter (RSV) 1)

In what way could we become 'partakers of the divine nature' and 'become gods'? How did such thoughts fit with what St. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 about becoming a 'new creation' in Christ? How did it fit with what he told the Galatians ( Galatians 3: 26-9) here:

26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians (RSV) 3)

How do we 'put on Christ' and become 'one' in Him? It was these Pauline and Petrine texts which, along with Psalm 82, exercised the thoughts of the Early Church Fathers.

The first of the Fathers we see engaging with the task of exegesis here is St. Ignatius. In his Epistle to the Ephesians (4.2), he offers us this explanation of what is is to be one in Christ:

Wherefore it is fitting that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also ye do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And do ye, man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and taking up the song of God in unison, ye may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may both hear you, and perceive by your works that ye are indeed the members of His Son. It is profitable, therefore, that you should live in an unblameable unity, that thus ye may always enjoy communion with God.

whilst in 9:2 he calls them:

God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, in whom also I exult ..

In addition to participating in God, and being God-bearers, Christians are 'full of God' (Magnesians 14:1) and 'have God in themselves' (Romans 6:3).

But these all seem straightforward statements about authentic Christianity being complete obedience to the will of God, and about that will being expressed through the bishop (Philadelphians 3):

For as many as are of Christ are also with the bishop; but as many as fall away from him, and embrace communion with the accursed, these shall be cut off along with them. For they are not Christ's husbandry, but the seed of the enemy, from whom may you ever be delivered by the prayers of the shepherd, that most faithful and gentle shepherd who presides over you.

The blessed martyr writes as a pastor, with a tender concern for the cure of souls. For him, attaining God is a future possibility, one to which he aspires through obedience and suffering.

So we don't see with him any engagement with St. Paul's sense of participation in a personal union with Christ; indeed he does not use the characteristically Pauline words: 'in Christ'. But he does see that the individual is, in some way, transformed by being a true disciple of the Lord. But the nature of that transformation, and how it relates to a personal relationship with the Risen Lord, had to wait for the writings of Justin Martyr c.150, and Irenaeus, writing about the same time.

It is these two who first see the importance of Psalm 82:6 in connection with the Pauline writings.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Dear LLOJ,
Thanks for the help here.
A key text here, along with Psalm 82:6 is 2 Peter 1:4

4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. (2Peter (RSV) 1)

Thanks Anglian and Romans 8:21 is also interesting. Paul uses a form of the word that is also used in the Jewish/Hebrew book of revelation and it goes back to Genesis when men were corrupting the Land and YHWH destroyed them except for Noah and his family [which is mentioned in the Gospels].

The earliest ECFs really didn't have the Hebrew/Greek resources to study the Bible with as we do today, and why I like going to the original texts for translations. Thoughts? Peace.

Romans 8:21 that also the creation itself shall be set free from the servitude of the corruption/fqoraV <5356> to the liberty of the glory of the children of God;

Reve 11:18 and the nations are angered and came the wrath of Thee, and the time/season of the dead ones to be judged, and to give the wages to the slaves/bondservants of Thee, the prophets, and to the saints, and to the ones fearing the name of Thee, the small ones and the great ones, and to blight/thru-corrupt/diafqeirai <1311> (5658) the ones blighting/thru-corrupting/diafqeirontaV <1311> (5723) the land. [Genesis 6:11-13]

diafqeirai <1311> (5658)
diafqeirontaV <1311> (5723)

1311. diaphtheiro dee-af-thi'-ro from 1225 and 5351; to rot thoroughly, i.e. (by implication) to ruin (passively, decay utterly, figuratively, pervert):--corrupt, destroy, perish
5351. phtheiro fthi'-ro probably strengthened from phthio (to pine or waste); properly, to shrivel or wither, i.e. to spoil (by any process) or (generally) to ruin (especially figuratively, by moral influences, to deprave):--corrupt (self), defile, destroy.
5356. phthora fthor-ah' from 5351; decay, i.e. ruin (spontaneous or inflicted, literally or figuratively):--corruption, destroy, perish.

http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=7273625
Matthew 24:1 only verse study only

 

[Anglian]

Dear LLOJ,

That's very helpful.

In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin argues that the Christians have supplanted the Jews as the true Israel because they have inherited the divine promises (Isaiah 42:1-4 in the LXX) by a spiritual birth. When Trypho denies that the Christians are the children of God, Justin responds by citing Psalm 82:6 [Dialogue CXXIV].

He does not really develop this theme, but what Justin does is to provide a connection between this text and 1 John 3:1, and the Pauline kergymatic verses. (2 Corinthians 8:9; Philadelphians 2:6-8).

It is St. Irenaeus who first makes explicit the identification of ‘the gods’ with those who have been incorporated into Christ by baptism.

Irenaeus wrote on this theme out of a concern to combat those Gnostics who claimed that only a spiritual elite would attain incorruption. He argues that all Christians can attain this blessed state, by virtue of the Incarnation and through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. We see in Against Heresies 38:4) the argument that human being advance in spiritual matters:

For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness. He declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and ye are all sons of the Highest." But since we could not sustain the power of divinity, He adds, "But ye shall die like men," setting forth both truths-the kindness of His free gift, and our weakness, and also that we were possessed of power over ourselves. For after His great kindness He graciously conferred good [upon us], and made men like to Himself, [that is] in their own power; while at the same time by His prescience He knew the infirmity of human beings, and the consequences which would flow from it; but through [His] love and [His] power, He shall overcome the substance of created nature. For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God, having received the knowledge of good and evil.

He argues against the Velentinian teaching that there is a transcendent God separate from the God of the Old Testament (the so-called Demiurge): (AH 3.6.1)

1. Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, and His Son who has received dominion from His Father over all creation, as this passage has it: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool."22 Here the [Scripture] represents to us the Father addressing the Son; He who gave Him the inheritance of the heathen, and subjected to Him all His enemies. Since, therefore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son truly Lord, the Holy Spirit has fitly designated them by the title of Lord. And again, referring to the destruction of the Sodomites, the Scripture says, "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven."23 For it here points out that the Son, who had also been talking with Abraham, had received power to judge the Sodomites for their wickedness. And this [text following] does declare the same truth: "Thy throne, O God; is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee."24 For the Spirit designates both [of them] by the name, of God-both Him who is anointed as Son, and Him who does anoint, that is, the Father. And again: "God stood in the congregation of the gods, He judges among the gods."25 He [here] refers to the Father and the Son, and those who have received the adoption; but these are the Church. For she is the synagogue of God, which God-that is, the Son Himself-has gathered by Himself. Of whom He again speaks: "The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and hath called the earth."26 Who is meant by God? He of whom He has said, "God shall come openly, our God, and shall not keep silence; "27 that is, the Son, who came manifested to men who said, "I have openly appeared to those who seek Me not."28 But of what gods [does he speak]? [Of those] to whom He says, "I have said, Ye are gods, and all sons of the Most High."29 To those, no doubt, who have received the grace of the "adoption, by which we cry, Abba Father."30

Where Justin had seen man becoming gods through obedience to the law, Irenaeus is the first to link it to the baptismal implications and to the Pauline theme of becoming sons ‘by adoption’. (AH 3.19.1):

1. But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: "I said, Ye are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but ye shall die like men." He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that might receive the adoption of sons?

Here we see Irenaeus moving towards the idea, which will become very influential, that the Son of God ‘became what we are in order to make us what he is himself.’ Or, as he puts it in the preface to AH 5:

following the only true and steadfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.

The Incarnation is an essential prerequisite of out journey to God, for we need to be mingled with the Logos through the adoption of baptism in order to participate in immortality and incorruption (AH 3.19.1; 3.20.2). These attributes belong only to God, and we can participate in them only if God first unites Himself to the human race through the Incarnation of the logos. Individual humans can then be united with Christ through filial adoption. As a result of the Incarnation, Christians have access to a divine dignity which heretics fail to attain; the latter are gods and sons of the Most High but die like men.

The Incarnation, he taught, was a true union of God with man, if created with uncreated; without such an ontological basis the Soteriological purposes of the Incarnation could not have been made effective; it took place so that we could recover what was lost in Adam, and so that mankind’s growth to maturity could be completed. As in 1 Timothy 2:5, by being the ‘mediator between God and man’, Christ accommodates God to man and accustoms men to receiving God. (AH 3.18.7; 3.20.2; 4.28.2)

In accordance with the Pauline kergymatic teaching, our sonship by adoption, which is effected by baptism, endows us with one supreme property in particular – the Son’s immortality and incorruption. But there is nothing automatic about this, it depends on our moral behaviour and on our participation in the sacraments, which together attain the divine likeness, morality being linked with the freedom and the sacraments with the life of the divine likeness.

This process he describes is AH 4.20.5:

For God is powerful in all things, having been seen at that time indeed, prophetically through the Spirit, and seen, too, adoptively through the Son; and He shall also be seen paternally in the kingdom of heaven, the Spirit truly preparing man in the Son of God, and the Son leading him to the Father, while the Father, too, confers [upon him] incorruption for eternal life, which comes to every one from the fact of his seeing God. For as those who see the light are within the light, and partake of its brilliancy; even so, those who see God are in God, and receive of His splendour. But [His] splendour vivifies them; those, therefore, who see God, do receive life. And for this reason, He, [although] beyond comprehension, and boundless and invisible, rendered Himself visible, and comprehensible, and within the capacity of those who believe, that He might vivify those who receive and behold Him through faith. For as His greatness is past finding out, so also His goodness is beyond expression; by which having been seen, He bestows life upon those who see Him. It is not possible to live apart from life, and the means of life is found in fellowship with God; but fellowship with God is to know God, and to enjoy His goodness.

In this scale of progress people become gods at the stage of adoption, for this is when they attain the divine likeness and begin to participate in the freedom and immortality that belong to the Father and the Logos.

The union with the Spirit initiated by baptism is maintained by the Eucharist. Through being nourished with the body and blood of Our Lord the body does not go into corruption but partakes of Life. (AH 4.18.5).

We can see here why the reality of the Incarnation matters so much; if Christ had not really become human, there could be no baptism with its bestowing incorruption and immortality on us. We cannot carry the power of divinity - we are totally depend on Christ. We have no ontological affinity with God, so we have no escape from the corruption and illusions of the material world through the discovery of any divinity within us; we can 'become gods' only through our relationship with the Incarnate Christ.

We might note in passing that incorruption and immortality are not, in Justin and Irenaeus, postponed to the eschaton, but attained in principle as a result of our incorporation into Christ through baptism. But the personal element of our union with Christ is not developed; for that we have to turn to Clement of Alexandria.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Dear LLOJ,
That's very helpful.
In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin argues that the Christians have supplanted the Jews as the true Israel because they have inherited the divine promises (Isaiah 42:1-4 in the LXX) by a spiritual birth. .............

.........We might note in passing that incorruption and immortality are not, in Justin and Irenaeus, postponed to the eschaton, but attained in principle as a result of our incorporation into Christ through baptism. But the personal element of our union with Christ is not developed; for that we have to turn to Clement of Alexandria.
Peace,
Anglian

What do you mean by the "eschaton".
Did he have acces to the Book of Revelation by any chance which is showing the Final Consummation of both "israel/judah" and the Nations?
Zech 2:13 is an interesting verse as it shows YHWH not only being "roused" but also leaving His Holy habitation.
I can view this as perhaps the birth of JESUS thru the mary. I am just now working on this. Thoughts?

http://www.scripture4all.org/

Zechariah 2:13 Be-hushed! All of flesh from faces of YHWH, that He is roused from habitation of holiness of Him.

Luke 3:6 And shall-be-seeing All flesh the Salvation of the God.'

Reve 19:17 And I perceived one messenger standing in the sun and he cries in voice, great, saying to all the birds, the ones flying in the mid heaven, "hither! be ye being gathered! into the Supper, the great, of the God. 18 That ye may be eating fleshes............"

 

[Anglian]

Dear LLOJ,

By the eschaton, I was meaning the final judgement, the end of all things. This is part of the Eastern emphasis on salvation as a process, and one which takes place in this world and the next.

The Zechariah reference I am most grateful for; I am not familiar enough with the ECFs reading of the OT to immediately spot if any of them picked it up; but it does, indeed, seem to be the sort of reference the ECFs would have picked up on. Your work on Revelation seems to be producing good fruit.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Dear LLOJ,

By the eschaton, I was meaning the final judgement, the end of all things. This is part of the Eastern emphasis on salvation as a process, and one which takes place in this world and the next.

The Zechariah reference I am most grateful for; I am not familiar enough with the ECFs reading of the OT to immediately spot if any of them picked it up; but it does, indeed, seem to be the sort of reference the ECFs would have picked up on. Your work on Revelation seems to be producing good fruit.

Peace,

Anglian

Greetings Anglian. I don't believe one has to go outside the Bible to interpret Revelation but from what I can see, accurate translation of that Book is an absolute must.

Did ya ever notie that big "Hush" in Reve 8?

http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=47445280#post47445280

Zechariah 2:13 Be-hushed! All of flesh from faces of YHWH, that He is roused from habitation of holiness of Him.

Revelation 8:1 And when it opens the Seal, the Seventh, became a hush in the heaven as half-hour.

TexRec) Revelation 8:1 kai ote hnoixen thn sfragida thn ebdomhn egeneto sigh en tw ouranw wV hmiwrion

 

[Philothei]

LLOJ ... the eschaton is what we live in.. We will know either the time or place so why spend our time with geneologies? We cannot fully interpret the text anyhow....

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

LLOJ ... the eschaton is what we live in.. We will know either the time or place so why spend our time with geneologies? We cannot fully interpret the text anyhow....

Who is talking about geneologies?

Btw, when do you see the Parousia happening in Revelation? You might be interested in my thread on Matt 24 here. Peace

http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=48233439#post48233439
Matthew 24:3 verse word study only

 

[Anglian]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Instead of taking the approach which focuses on where the ECFs disagree and asking which of them was right, an attempt is being made here to show how, more typically, their writings, based upon the Church's understanding of Scripture, enlarge our own reading of the same - as well as helping form the doctrines through which the Church has tried to hold at arm's length heretical notions. Here, the theme being developed is that of theosis or divinisation.

The idea of human beings becoming gods entered Christian thought from Rabbinic Judaism. For Irenaeus, the sons of the Most High are those who have received the grace of adoption through baptism and the Eucharist, which means that Christ had to become really human. For both him and Justin becoming a ‘god’ is a way of expressing a realised and internalised eschatology. In Christ the created is united with the uncreated, and we in turn are related to the uncreated through Christ. The Incarnation is part of a larger economy that enables us to participate in the divine attributes of immortality and incorruption and attain the telos which had been intended for Adam.

According to Clement the Christian is deified by a heavenly teaching (Prot. 11.114.4) and when fully perfected after the likeness of his teacher, he ‘becomes a God while still moving about in the flesh’. (Strom. 7.101.4); and at the end of his life he is enthroned ‘with the other gods’ in the heavenly places.’

One problem raised, but not solved, by Clement, was how a transcendent God can be approached by humans in an intimate way. He saw his task as trying to determine how a human being could become sufficiently like a God who was beyond all human knowledge and virtue to enjoy a community of being with him.

In his Protrepticus (Exhortation to the Heathen – EH) he writes (1.8.4): about the Word ‘having become man in order that you too may learn from a man how it is even possible for man to become a god’. How do we learn? Through the Scriptures, by which God conforms us to his likeness ( EH 9.87). He sets out how this happens in the 6th book of his Stromateis. In the Scriptures we are taught truth by the Son of God, first through the prophecies, and then more clearly in the Gospels; but even there the truth is veiled, for the Lord always expresses the divine mysteries in parables. The Scriptures do not yield their meaning without an authoritative guide, and that guide is the Church’s rule of faith.

Interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Church's rule reveals the truth taught by Christ, which is divine knowledge, leading to prudence, or practical wisdom. Divine knowledge and practical wisdom are, for Clement, roughly equivalent: 'and are found in those being deified'. (Strom. 6.125.4). Without the Church's rule of Faith - the 'canon of truth' received from 'the truth itself' (Strom. 7.94.5) - the reader of Scripture will go astray; with it he will attain perfection. He offers this vivid analogy in Strom. 7.95.1-2):

As if, then, one were to become a beast instead of a man, like those who were changed by Circe's drugs [Odyssey 10. 235-247], so it is with him who has spurned the tradition of the Church and has suddenly taken up with the fancies of human sects; he has lost the character of a man of God, and of enduring trust in the Lord. But he who has returned from this deceit after hearing the Scriptures, and has turned his life to the truth, such a person becomes in the end as it were a god instead of a man.[/QUOTE]

Ironically, perhaps, for those who seem to imply some contradiction between the word of Scripture and the ECFs, even before there was anything like a canon, the Fathers put just as much importance on the actual words of God as any sola scriptura Christian; the one caveat is the one which the Orthodox Church holds to this day - that the Scriptures must be read within the rule of Faith of the Church.

We attain deification by imitating Christ as He appears in His Scriptures. In the Paedagogus (I.98.3), Clement writes that Christ came to transform 'earth-born man into holy and heavenly man'. In the Stromateis (2.125.4-5) he writes, in exegesis of Psalm 82:6:

'God stood in the congregation of gods; in their midst he judges gods' [Psalm 82:1]. Who are these gods? They are those who are superior to pleasure, who rise above the passions, who have a precise knowledge of everything that they do, who are gnostics, who transcend the world. Then comes: 'I said you are gods and all of you sons of the Most High' [Psalm 82:6]. To whom is the Lord speaking? To those who have detached themselves as far as possible form everything human.

The man who becomes a god is one who turns to truth after hearing the Scriptures, who becomes like Christ his teacher by imitating the perfection of the Word. He must be baptised and obedient to the teaching of the Church. But he must also strive for perfection both in contemplation of Christ, and in his ethical life. Through the mastery of his passions he will attain and interior unity and freedom from desire which resembles the unity and autonomy of God Himself.

But the problem with Clement's view is that it is hard to see how the ordinary Christian can attain this state. For that, we need to turn to that most brilliant of the early Fathers, Origen.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[Anglian]

Dear LLOJ,

This is one for you. I know how it frustrates you at times that those of us into the ECFs have so little to offer you on your favourite book, so I thought this, which I have come across in my study of St. Clement, might interest you.

Although salvation is one and is for all believers, there were, Clement believed, 'degrees of glory' (cf. 1 Cor. 15:41) in Heaven, for there were some chosen especially from among the chosen. In Stromateis 6.107.2, Clement singles out the 24 elders of Revelation 4:4 who are seated on thrones clad in white garments with golden crowns on their heads.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[simonthezealot]

Zech 2:13 is an interesting verse as it shows YHWH not only being "roused" but also leaving His Holy habitation.
I can view this as perhaps the birth of JESUS thru the mary. I am just now working on this. Thoughts?

http://www.scripture4all.org/

Zechariah 2:13 Be-hushed! All of flesh from faces of YHWH, that He is roused from habitation of holiness of Him.

The Zechariah reference I am most grateful for; I am not familiar enough with the ECFs reading of the OT to immediately spot if any of them picked it up; but it does, indeed, seem to be the sort of reference the ECFs would have picked up on. Your work on Revelation seems to be producing good fruit.

Peace,

Anglian

Does this help?
It appears JM referenced it in the trypho work.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.cxv.html?scrBook=Zech&scrCh=2-2&scrV=13-13#highlight

and the devil stood at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said to the devil, The Lord who hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Behold, is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’ "23832383 Zech. ii. 10–13, Zech. iii. 1, 2.

 

[Anglian]

Dear Simon,

Most useful, and very helpful; thank you very much.

Good to have you back with us here. I don't know whether the rather lengthy stuff I am posting on theosis is of any interest, but hopefully it illustrates the way in which we can see the ECFs take up an important theme from Scripture and illuminate our understanding of it.

I am struck, having reread 1 Clement over the past few days by two things which have a bearing on our long discussion here.

The first is that it was considered part of Holy Scripture by the compiler of the Codex Alexandrinus, and, along with 2 Clement appears in some of the lists prior to that of St. Athanasius; and how interesting that despite the Alexandrian connection, the latter knew they were not of Apostolic origin, and omitted them.

The second is the extent to which even at this very early stage, Scripture is used to support everything; and it is plain that the OT he uses is the LXX. Whilst, of course, he has no idea of an NT canon, we can see that Christians were already ascribing the same authority to the words of Christ and His Apostles. Chapters 13 and 46 are rich is quotations from Our Lord Himself, including one which only appears in the so-called Gospel of Thomas. He also quotes from Hebrews, Corinthians and Ephesians.

Again, thanks for the Justin reference.

Peace,

Anglian