"There are three reasons for the love of money: pleasure-seeking, vainglory, and lack of faith. And more serious than the other two is lack of faith."

Τρία εἰσι τὰ αἴτια τῆς τῶν χρημάτων ἀγάπης·  φιληδονία, κενοδοξία καὶ ἀπιστια·  χαλεπωτέρα δὲ τῶν δύο ἡ ἀπιστία καθέστηκεν.

     Maximus the Confessor, Four hundred chapters on love 3.17, trans. George C. Berthold, in Maximus Confessor:  selected writings,Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1985), 63.  Capitoli sulla carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Verba seniorum n.s. 3 (Roma : Editrice Studium, 1963), 150; PG 90, col. .

Altar to sin

"From the passions embedded in the soul the demons take their starting base to stir up passionate thoughts in us.  Then, by making war on the mind through them they force it to go along and consent to sin.  When it is overcome they lead it on to a sin of thought, and when this is accomplished they finally bring it as a prisoner to the deed.  After this, at length, the demons who have devastated the soul through thoughts withdraw with them.  In the mind there remains only the idol of sin [(τὸ εἴδωλον τῆς ἁμαρτίας)] about which the Lord says, 'When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, let him who reads understand.'  Man's mind is a holy place and a temple of God in which demons have laid waste the soul through passionate thoughts and set up the idol of sin [(τὸ εἴδωλον τῆς ἁμαρτίας)]."

     Maximus the Confessor, Four hundred chapters on love 2.31, trans. George C. Berthold, in Maximus Confessor:  selected writings,Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1985), 51.  Capitoli sulla carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Verba seniorum n.s. 3 (Roma : Editrice Studium, 1963), 106; PG 90, col. .  Was it Jim Elliot who spoke of the "altar to sin"?

"the Tritheists in separating the Son from the Father rush in with cliffs all around."

. . . εἰς ἀμφίκρημνον ἐμπίπτουσιν.

     Maximus the Confessor, Four hundred chapters on love 2.29, trans. George C. Berthold, in Maximus Confessor:  selected writings,Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1985), 50.  Capitoli sulla carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Verba seniorum n.s. 3 (Roma : Editrice Studium, 1963), 104; PG 90, col. .

"do not say that 'mere faith in our Lord Jesus Christ can save me.' For this is impossible unless you acquire love for him through works. For in what concerns mere believing, 'even the devils believe and tremble.'"

σὺ μὴ εἴπῃς, ὅτι ἡ ψιλὴ πίστις εἰς τὸν Κύριον ὑμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν δύναταί με σῶσαι.  Ἀμήχανον γὰρ τοῦτο, ἐὰν μὴ καὶ τήν ἀγάπην τὴν εἰς αὐτὸν διὰ τῶν ἔργων κτήσῃ.  Τὸ γάρ ψιλῶς πιστεύειν, καὶ τὰ δαιμόνια πιστεύουσι καὶ φρίσσουσι.

     Maximus the Confessor, Four hundred chapters on love 1.39, trans. George C. Berthold, in Maximus Confessor:  selected writings,Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1985), 39.  Capitoli sulla carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Verba seniorum n.s. 3 (Roma : Editrice Studium, 1963), 62; PG 90, col. .

"In no way can the sinner escape the judgment to come unless he takes on here below voluntary hardships or involuntary afflictions."

Οὐκ ἔστιν ἁμαρτήσαντα ἐκφυγεῖν τὴν μέλλουσαν κρίσιν ἄνευ ἑκουσίων ἐνταῦθα πόνων ἢ ἀκουσίων ἐπιφορῶν.

     Maximus the Confessor, Four hundred chapters on love 2.66, trans. George C. Berthold, in Maximus Confessor:  selected writings, Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1985), 56.  Capitoli sulla carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Verba seniorum n.s. 3 (Roma : Editrice Studium, 1963), 124; PG 90, col. .

Jesus: "separated from [the] sinners" he came "to call . . . to repentance"

"it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens [(ὅσιος ἄκακος ἀμίαντος, κεχωρισμένος ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ ὑψηλότερος τῶν οὐρανῶν γενόμενος)]" (Heb 7:26 RSV).

"'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance [(οὐκ ἐλήλυθα καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλ᾽ ἁμαρτωλοὺς εἰς μετάνοιαν)]" (Lk 5:31-32 RSV; cf. Mt 9:12-13 and Mk 2:17, neither of which contain the phrase "to repentance" (though it is of course Matthew and Mark who stress that after the execution of John the Baptist (for preaching against sexual immorality!) Jesus took up his very call:  "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'" (Mt 4:17; cf. Mk 1:14), and though it is actually remarkable how much the Jesus of the Gospels speaks of the importance of repentance; cf. also Titus 2:14:  "Jesus Christ . . . gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds").

"You ought to say plainly that you do not believe the gospel of Christ. For to believe what you please, and not to believe what you please, is to believe yourselves, and not the gospel."

     St. Augustine, Contra Faustum 17.3, trans. Richard Stothert, NPNF, 1 ser., vol. 4, p. ; cf. WSA 1.20, trans. Roland Teske, S.J. (Hyde Park, NY:  New City Press, 2007), p. .  Context:  "Faustus rejects Christ’s declaration that He came . . . to fulfill [the law and the prophets], on the ground that [the statement that He came not to destroy but to fulfill them] is found only in Matthew, who was not present when the words purport to have been spoken" (Stothert).  He had to, because "Manicheism. . . . went on to reject the Old Testament itself as well as everything it considered 'Jewish interpolations' in the New Testament.  The proof of the evil origin of the rejected scriptures lay in their content, for they presented a god who was subject to anger, jealousy, revenge, and the like, and who encouraged acts of immorality, such as the slaying of enemies, polygamy, and procreation" (Augustine through the ages:  an encyclopedia, sv Mani, Manicheism (p. 524), by J. Kevin Cole).

aperte dicite non uos credere Christi euangeliio; nam qui in euangelio, quod uultis, creditis, quod uultis, non creditis, uobis potius quam euangelio creditis.

     CSEL 25/1 (1891), p. 486.
   
     Facebook meme:  "If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."

"Through whom you continue to make all these good things, O Lord; you sanctify them, fill them with life, bless them, and bestow them upon us."

"Per quem haec omnia, Domine, semper bona creas, sanctificas, vivificas, benedicis, et praestas nobis."

     Eucharistic prayer I, Roman Missal.
     According to Fr. Hunwicke, this line, present in its present context already in the Gelasian sacramentary, does not refer to the Body and Blood, but "originally concluded the blessing of substances brought to the Altar: such as oil . . . and beans" and grapes.  Cf. Jungmann, The Mass (1975), 204:  "The new Canons contain no parallel . . . to the benediction at the words "all these [gifts]' (haec omnia), whose reference is far from clear."  Cf. also Beresford-Cooke, The sign of the cross in the western liturgies, Alcuin Club tracts 7 (London:  Longmans, Green, & Co., 1907), pp. 13 ff.  (And with that, which refers back to De Vert in 1720, we are off and running.)

"No physical science without physical interference, no personal knowledge without personal intercourse; no thought about any reality about which we can do nothing but think."

"to know real beings we must exercise our actual relation with them.  No physical science without physical interference, no personal knowledge without personal intercourse; no thought about any reality about which we can do nothing but think. . . . We can know nothing of God, unless we can do something about him.  So what, we must ask, can we do?"

"Nothing can give substance to our thought of God but an experience which employs our activity in relation to God, where that activity is something other than thought itself."

"God would not be recognized as worshipful, save in relation to our worshipping.  If he is so recognized, there is something we can do about God:  we can worship him."

     Austin Farrer, Faith and speculation:  an essay in philosophical theology (New York:  New York University Press; London:  Adam & Charles Black, 1967), 22, 28, 26 (chap. 2, "The empirical demand").

"'the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light'"

QuoteSaga

"'I want you to decide if you love me more than you hate what I did.'"

     Rachel Zane to Mike Ross on Suits, Season 4, Episode 8.

"As much as it is easier to sin in thought than in deed, so is a war with thoughts more exacting than one with things."

Ὅσον ἐστὶν εὐκοπώτερον τὸ κατὰ διάνοιον ἁμαρτάνειν τοῦ κατ᾿ἐνέργειαν, τοσοῦτόν ἐστι βαρύτερος ὁ διὰ τῶν νοημάτων πόλεμος τοῦ διὰ τῶν πραγμάτων.

     Maximus the Confessor, Four hundred chapters on love 2.72, trans. George C. Berthold, in Maximus Confessor:  selected writings,Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1985), 57.  Capitoli sulla carità, ed. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Verba seniorum n.s. 3 (Roma : Editrice Studium, 1963), 128; PG 90, col. .  Cf. 1.91:  "the demons' battle with us through thoughts is more severe than that through deeds" (45).