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TOPIC: Nicene Fathers Vol 05 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 15.10.05 Dogmatical & Historical Pt. 5
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9. This is the Spirit that at the beginning "moved upon the thee of the waters; "hyperlink by whom the world moves; by whom creation consists, and all things have life; who also wrought mightily in the prophets,hyperlink and descended in flight upon Christ.hyperlink This is the Spirit that was given to the apostles in the form of fiery tongues.hyperlink This is the Spirit that David sought when he said, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."hyperlink Of this Spirit Gabriel also spoke to the Virgin, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."hyperlink By this Spirit Peter spake that blessed word, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."hyperlink By this Spirit the rock of the Church was stablished.hyperlink This is the Spirit, the Comforter, that is sent because of thee,hyperlink that He may show thee to be the Sonhyperlink of God.
10. Come then, be begotten again, O man, into the adoption of God. And how? says one. If thou practisest adultery no more, and committest not murder, and servest not idols; if thou art not overmastered by pleasure; if thou dost not suffer the feeling of pride to rule thee; if thou cleanest off the filthiness of impurity, and puttest off the burden of sin; if thou castest off the armour of the devil, and puttest on the breastplate of faith, even as Isaiah saith, "Wash you, and seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow. And come and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, I shall make them white as snow; and though they be like crimson, I shall make them white as wool. And if ye be willing, and hear my voice, ye shall eat the good of the land."hyperlink Do you see, beloved, how the prophet spake beforetime of the purifying power of baptism? For he who comes down in faith to the layer of regeneration, and renounces the devil, and joins himself to Christ; who denies the enemy, and makes the confession that Christ is God; who puts off the bondage, and puts on the adoption,-he comes up from the baptism brilliant as the sun,hyperlink flashing forth the beams of righteousness, and, which is indeed the chief thing, he returns a son of God and joint-heir with Christ. To Him be the glory and the power, together with His most holy, and good, and quickening Spirit, now and ever, and to all the ages of the ages. Amen.
Fragments of Discourses or Homilies.
I.hyperlink
From the Discourse of Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome, on the Resurrection and Incorruption.
Men, he says, "in the resurrection will be like the angels of God,"hyperlink to wit, in incorruption, and immortality, and incapacity of loss.hyperlink For the incorruptible nature is not the subject of generation;hyperlink it grows not, sleeps not, hungers not, thirsts not, is not wearied, suffers not, dies not, is not pierced by nails and spear, sweats not, drops not with blood. Of such kind are the natures of the angels and of souls released from the body. For both these are of another kind, and different from these creatures of our world, which are visible and perishing.
II.hyperlink
From the Discourse of St. Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr, on the Divine Nature.hyperlink
God is capable of willing, but not of not willinghyperlink for that pertains only to one that changes and makes choice;hyperlink for things that are being made follow the eternal will of God, by which also things that are made abide sustained.
III.hyperlink
St. Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr, in his Homily on the Paschal Supper.
He was altogetherhyperlink in all, and everywhere; and though He filleth the universe up to all the principalities of the air, He stripped Himself again. And for a brief space He cries that the cup might pass from Him, with a view to show truly that He was also man.hyperlink But remembering, too, the purpose for which He was sent, He fulfils the dispensation (economy) for which He was sent, and exclaims, "Father, not my will,"hyperlink and, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."hyperlink
IV.hyperlink
1. Take me, O Samuel, the heifer brought to Bethlehem, in order to show the king begotten of David, and him who is anointed to be king and priest by the Father.
2. Tell me, O blessed Mary, what that was that was conceived by thee in the womb, and what that was that was born by thee in thy virgin matrix. For it was the first-born Word of God that descended to thee from heaven, and was formed as a first-born man in the womb, in order that the first-born Word of God might be shown to be united with a first-born man.
3. And in the second (form),-to wit, by the prophets, as by Samuel, calling back and delivering the people from the slavery of the aliens. And in the third (form), that in which He was incarnate, taking to Himself humanity from the Virgin, in which character also He saw the city, and wept over it.
V.hyperlink
And for this reason three seasons of the year prefigured the Saviour Himself, so that He should fulfil the mysteries prophesied of Him. In the Passover season, so as to exhibit Himself as one destined to be sacrificed like a sheep, and to prove Himself the true Paschal-lamb, even as the apostle says, "Even Christ," who is God, "our passover was sacrificed for us."hyperlink And at Pentecost so as to presignify the kingdom of heaven as He Himself first ascended to heaven and brought man as a gift to God.hyperlink
VI.hyperlink
And an ark of imperishable wood was the Saviour Himself. For by this was signified the imperishable and incorruptible tabernacle (of His body), which engendered no corruption of sin. For the man who has sinned also has this confession to make: "My wounds stank, and were corrupt, because of my foolishness."hyperlink But the Lord was without sin, being of imperishable wood in respect of His humanity,-that is to say, being of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit, covered, as it were, within and without with the purest gold of the Word of God.
VII.hyperlink
1. He who rescued from the lowest hell the first-formed man of earth when he was lost and bound with the chains of death; He who came down from above, and raised the earthy on high;hyperlink He who became the evangelist of the dead, and the redeemer of the souls, and the resurrection of the buried,-He was constituted the helper of vanquished man, being made like him Himself, (so that) the first-born Word acquainted Himself with the first-formed Adam in the Virgin; He who is spiritual sought out the earthy in the womb; He who is the ever-living One sought out him who, through disobedience, is subject to death; He who is heavenly called the terrene to the things that are above; He who is the nobly-born sought, by means of His own subjection, to declare the slave free; He transformed the man into adamant who was dissolved into dust and made the food of the serpent, and declared Him who hung on the tree to be Lord over the conqueror, and thus through the tree He is found victor.
2. For they who know not now the Son of God incarnate, shall know in Him who comes as Judge in glory, Him who is now despised in the body of His humiliation.
3. And the apostles, when they came to the sepulchre on the third day, did not find the body of Jesus; just as the children of Israel went up the mount and sought for the tomb of Moses, but did not find it.
VIII.hyperlink
Under the figure of Egypt he described the world; and under things made with hands, idolatry; and under the earthquake, the subversion, and dissolution of the earth itself. And he represented the Lord the Word as a light cloud, the purest tabernacle. enthroned on which our Lord Jesus Christ entered into this life in order to subvert error.
IX.hyperlink
Now Hippolytus, the martyr and bishop of [the Province of] Rome, in his second discourse on Daniel, speaks thus:-
Then indeed Azarias, standing along with the others, made their acknowledgments to God with song and prayer in the midst of the furnace. Beginning thus with His holy and glorious and honourable name, they came to the works of the Lord themselves, and named first of all those of heaven, and glorified Him, saying, "Bless the Lord, all ye works of the Lord." Then they passed to the sons of men, and taking up their hymn in order, they then named the spirits [that people Tartarushyperlink beneath the earth, ] and the souls of the righteous, in order that they might praise God together with them.Xhyperlink
Now a person might say that these men, and those who hold a different opinion, are yet near neighbours, being involved in like error. For those men, indeed, either profess that Christ came into our life a mere man, and deny the talent of His divinity, or else, acknowledging Him to be God, they deny, on the other hand, His humanity, and teach that His appearances to those who saw Him as man were illusory, inasmuch as He did not bear with Him true manhood, but was rather a kind of phantom manifestation. Of this class are, for example, Marcion and Valentinus, and the Gnostics, who sunder the Word from the flesh, and thus set aside the one talent, viz., the incarnation.XIhyperlink
1. The body of the Lord presented both these to the world, the sacred blood and the holy water.
2. And His body, though dead after the manner of man, possesses in it great power of life. For streams which flow not from dead bodies flowed forth from Him, viz., blood and water; in order that we might know what power for life is held by the virtue that dwelt in His body, so as that it appears not to be dead like others, and is able to shed forth for us the springs of life.
3. And not a bone of the Holy Lamb is broken, this figure showing us that suffering toucheth not His strength. For the bones are the strength of the body.
Fragments from Other Writings of Hippolytus.hyperlink
I perceive, then, that the matter is one of contention. For hehyperlink speaks thus: Christ kept the supper, then, on that day, and then suffered; whence it is needful that I, too, should keep it in the same manner as the Lord did. But he has fallen into error by not perceiving that at the time when Christ suffered He did not eat the passover of the law.hyperlink For He was the passover that had been of old proclaimed, and that was fulfilled on that determinate day.
And again the same (authority), in the first book of his treatise on the Holy Supper, speaks thus:-
Now that neither in the first nor in the last there was anything false is evident; for he who said of old, "I will not any more eat the passover,"hyperlink probably partook of supper before the passover. But the passover He did not eat, but He suffered; for it was not the time for Him to eat.IIIhyperlink
Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr, in a letter to a certain queen.hyperlink
1. He calls Him, then, "the first-fruits of them that sleep,"hyperlink as the "first-begotten of the dead."hyperlink For He, having risen, and being desirous to show that that same (body) had been raised which had also died, when His disciples were in doubt, called Thomas to Him, and said, "Reach hither; handle me, and see: for a spirit hath not bone and flesh, as ye see me have."hyperlink
2. In calling Him the first-fruits, he testified to that which we have said, viz., that the Saviour, taking to Himself the flesh out of the same lump, raised this same flesh, and made it the first-fruits of the flesh of the righteous, in order that all we who have believed in the hope of the Risen One may have the resurrection in expectation.
The Story OF A Maiden OF Corinth, And A Certain Magistrianus
The account given by Hippolytus, the friend of the apostleshyperlink
In another little book bearing the name of Hippolytus, the friend of the apostles, I found a story of the following nature:-
There lived a certain most noble and beautiful maidenhyperlink in the city of Corinth, in the careful exercise of a virtuous life. At that time some persons falsely charged her before the judge there, who was a Greek, with cursing the times, and the princes, and the images. Now those who trafficked in such things, brought her beauty under the notice of the impious judge, who lusted after women. And he gladly received the accusation with his equine ears and lascivious thoughts. And when she was brought before the bloodstained (judge), he was driven still more frantic with profligate passion. But when, after bringing every device to bear upon her, the profane than could not gain over this woman of God, he subjected the noble maiden to various outrages. And when he failed in these too, and was unable to seduce her from her confession of Christ, the cruel judge became furious against her, and gave her over to a punishment of the following nature: Placing the chaste maiden in a brothel, he charged the manager, saying, Take this woman, and bring me three nummi by her every day. And the man, exacting the money from her by her dishonour, gave her up to any who sought her in the brothel. And when the women-hunters knew that, they came to the brothel, and, paying the price lint upon their iniquity, sought to seduce her. But this most honourable maiden, taking counsel with herself to deceive them, called them to her, and earnestly besought them, saying: I have a certain ulceration of the pudenda, which has an extremely hateful stench; and I am afraid that ye might come to hate me on account of the abominable sore. Grant me therefore a few days, and then ye may have me even for nothing. With these words the blessed maiden gained over the profligates, and dismissed them for a time.hyperlink And with most fitting prayers she importuned God, and with contrite supplications she sought to turn Him to compassion. God, therefore, who knew her thoughts, and understood how the chaste maiden was distressed in heart for her purity, gave ear to her; and the Guardian of the safety of all men in those days interposed with His arrangements in the following manner:-
Of a certain person Magistrianus.hyperlink
There was a certain young man, Magistrianus,hyperlink comely in his personal appearance, and of a pious mind, whom God had inspired with such a burning spiritual zeal, that he despised even death itself. He, coming under the guise of profligacy, goes in, when the evening was far gone, to the fellow who kept the women, and pays him five nummi, and says to him, Permit me to spend this night with this damsel. Entering then with her into the private apartment, he says to her, Rise, save thyself. And taking off her garments, and dressing her in his own attire, his night-gown, his cloak, and all the habiliments of a man, he says to her, Wrap yourself up with the top of your cloak, and go out; and doing so, and signing herself entirely with the mystery of the cross, she went forth uncorrupted from that place, and was preserved perfectly stainless by the grace of Christ, and by the instrumentality of the young man, who by his own blood delivered her from dishonour. And on the following day the matter became known, and Magistrianus was brought before the infuriated judge. And when the cruel tyrant had examined the noble champion of Christ, and had learned all, he ordered him to be thrown to the wild beasts,-that in this, too, the honour-hating demon might be put to shame. For, whereas he thought to involve the noble youth in an unhallowed punishment, he exhibited him as a double martyr for Christ, inasmuch as he had both striven nobly for his own immortal soul, and persevered manfully in labours also in behalf of that noble and blessed maiden. Wherefore also he was deemed worthy of double honour with Christ, and of the illustrious and blessed crowns by His goodness.