The regulation of the flesh as proof of the resurrection of the flesh

Theophanes the Cretan

"if our physician Christ, God, having rescued us from our desires [(ἐπιθυμιῶν)], regulates our flesh [(σάρκα)] with His own wise and temperate rule, it is evident that He guards it from sins [(ἁμαρτημιάτων)] because it possesses a hope of salvation [(ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας)]."

     Pseudo-Justin Martyr, De resurrectione 10, trans. Dods (ANF 1, p. 299).  =Heimgartner, .  Cf. p. 248 of vol. 2 of the 3rd (1876-1881) ed. of the edition of the Opera . . . omnia ed. Otto.

Gratia non tollit naturam

Thorens-Glieres (1567-1622),
Monastère de la Visitation, Paris

"devotion must be practiced in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman. But even this distinction is not sufficient; for the practice of devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties [(aux forces, aux affairs et aux devoirs)] of each one in particular.
     "Tell me, please, my Philothea, whether it is proper for a bishop to want to lead a solitary life like a Carthusian; or for married people to be no more concerned than a Capuchin about increasing their income [(Et si les mariés ne vouloient rien amasser non plus que les Capucins)]; or for a working man to spend his whole day in church like a religious; or on the other hand for a religious to be constantly exposed like a bishop to all the events and circumstances that bear on the needs of our neighbor. Is not this sort of devotion ridiculous, unorganized and intolerable [(ridicule, desreglee et insupportable)]? Yet this absurd error occurs very frequently, but in no way does true devotion, my Philothea, destroy anything at all. On the contrary, it perfects and fulfills all things. In fact if it ever works against, or is inimical to, anyone’s legitimate station and calling, then it is very definitely false devotion [(la devotion ne gaste rien quand elle est vraye, ains elle perfectionne tout, et lhors qu’elle se rend contraire a la legitime vacation de quelqu’un, elle est sans doute fausse)]. . . .
     "It is therefore an error and even a heresy [(un erreur, ains une heresie)] to wish to exclude the exercise of devotion from military divisions, from the artisans’ shops, from the courts of princes, from family households. . . .  [T]he type of devotion which is purely contemplative, monastic and religious can certainly not be exercised in these sorts of stations and occupations, but besides this threefold type of devotion, there are many others fit for perfecting those who live in a secular state.
     "Therefore, in whatever situations we happen to be, we can and we must aspire to the life of perfection."

     St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the devout life I.iii, trans. Liturgy of the hours.  French from pp. 19-21 of tom. 3 of the Œuvres complètes published by the Visitandines of Annecy (1892-1932).  vacation is, according to the dictionaries of early French that I have here at home, correct.  "'Lot,' St. Gregory says, 'who was so chaste in the city defiled himself in the wilderness' [(Loth, dit saint Gregoire, qui fut si chaste en la ville, se souïlla en la solitude)]" (trans. Ryan; the reference is to Pope St. Gregory the Great, Hom. Ezek., book 1, no. 9, sec. 22.1 (SC 327, ed. & trans. Morel, p. 362 ll. 21-22 | 24-26:  "Lot de quo loquimur, in Sodomis sanctus exstitit, in monte peccauit," "Lot, dont nous venons de parler, se montra un saint à Sodome, et pécha sur la montagne".   Trans. Theodosia Tomkinson (Etna, CA:  Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2008), pp. 172-173:

when it is said to the Prophet:  'Thou art among unbelievers and destroyers, and thou dwellest with scorpions' a physic of consolation is offered to us who are often tired of living since we are unwilling to dwell with evils.  Therefore we lament that all who live with us are not good.  We are reluctant to bear the sins of our neighbors, we already perceive that all ought to be Saints, while we are unwilling to be that which we bear from our neighbors.  But in this matter it is clearer than light, when we refuse to tolerate bad men how much less we still have of good.  For a person is not wholly good unless he is good even among evil men.  Hence Blessed Job asserts of himself saying:  'I was the brother of dragons, and companion of ostriches.'  Hence Paul the Apostle says to his disciples:  'In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.'  Hence Peter, shepherd of the Lord's flock, says:  'And delivered just Lot, oppressed by the injustice and lewd conversation of the wicked; for in sight and hearing he was just, dwelling among them who from day to day vexed the just soul with unjust works.'  Often indeed when we complain about the lives of our neighbors we seek to change our place, to choose the solitude of a more remote life, ignorant evidently that if the spirit is lacking the place does not help.  For that same Lot of whom we speak stood as holy in Sodom but sinned upon the mountain.  For that places do not protect the mind the very first ancestor of the human race bears witness, he who fell even in Paradise.  But all the words we speak from earth are less.  For if the place had power to save, Satan would not have fallen from Heaven. . . .

     But indeed there is one reason why the company of the wicked should be avoided, lest if perchance they cannot be restrained they attract to imitation, and when they themselves are not changed from their malice, the pervert those who are associated with them. . . . 

 

 

 

"And now the matchless deed's atchiev'd, | DETERMINED, DARED, AND DONE."

National Portrait Gallery 3780

     Christopher Smart (1722-1771), "A song to David" (1763), stanza 86, and also the concluding stanza to "We sing of God, the mighty source".  On p. 147 of vol. 2 of the Clarendon Poetical works.

Extra patristicum

"God the Word did not move out of himself when he dwelt among us.  Nor did he undergo a change when the Word became flesh.  Heaven was not deprived of what it contained, and earth received the heavenly one within its own embraces.  Do not suppose that the divinity fell.  For it did not move from one place to another as bodies do.  Do not imagine that the divinity was altered when it was transferred into flesh.  For the immortal is immutable."

Saint Basil the Great, Homily no. 2 on the Theophany (or Epiphany, otherwise known as the homily In sanctam Christi generationem, On the holy birth of Christ) 2, as trans. Holman and DelCogliano, St. Basil the Great On fasting and feasts, Popular patristics series 50 (Yonkers, NY:  St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2013), 29.  Greek at p. 850 col. 2E-A of the 1839 De Sinner ("apud Gaume") reprint of the Garnier (or Maurist) edition of the Opera omnia of 1721-1730, though there is also the the edition of Luigi Gambero (L'omelia sulla generazione di Cristo di Basilo di Cesarea:  Il posto della vergine Maria, Marian studies library 13-14 (Dayton, OH:  University of Dayton, 1981-1982), 177-200).

"I can never see God except in that in which God sees Himself"

"I can never see God except in that [itself] in which God sees Himself [inwardly]."

"Niemermê enmac ich got gesehen wan in dem selben, dâ got sich selben inne sihet."

      Meister Eckhart, Sermon 69 (or 42) on Jn 16:16 in German, as trans. Maurice O’C. Walshe (Complete mystical works of Meister Eckhart (New York:  A Herder & Herder Book, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009), 236, inexpert interpolations mine.  German from p. 175 l. 5 of Meister Eckharts Predigten, ed. Quint, Bd. 3, Die deutschen Werke 3 (1976) =l. 12 of Predigt 69.  For an earlier edition, see p. 144 of the 1857 edition by Pfeiffer.
     Eckhart refers next to the "inaccessible light" in which, according to St. Paul, "God dwells," but would it be twisting him (with whose thought I am extremely unfamiliar) to see the eternal Word in this (and therefore ultimately the Incarnation), too?  In context, probably.

"Since God loves the soul so mightily, the soul must be a very important thing."

      "Know then that God loves the soul so mightily, it is a wonder.  If anyone were to rob God of loving the soul, he would rob Him of His life and [his] being, or he would kill God, if one may say so; for the self-same love with which God loves the soul is His life, and in that same love the Holy Ghost blossoms forth, and that same love is the Holy Ghost.  Since God loves the soul so mightily, the soul must be a very important thing."

     "Nû wizzet, daz got die sêle als krefticlîche minnet, daz ez wunder ist.  Der daz gote benæme, daz er die sêle niht enminnete, der benæme im sîn leben unde sîn wesen, oder er tôte got, ob man daz sprechen sölte; wan diu selbe minne, dâ mite got die sêle minnet, daz ist sîn leben, und in der selben minne blüejet ûz der heilige geist, und diu selbe minne ist der heilige geist.  Sît got die sêle alsô krefticlîche minnet, sô muoz diu sêle ein alsô grôz dinc sîn."

     Meister Eckhart, Sermon 69 (or 42) on Jn 16:16 in German, as trans. Maurice O’C. Walshe (Complete mystical works of Meister Eckhart (New York:  A Herder & Herder Book, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009), 234.  German from p. 163 l. 6-p. 164 l. 2 of Meister Eckharts Predigten, ed. Quint, Bd. 3, Die deutschen Werke 3 (1976), =ll. 34-39 of Predigt 69.  For an earlier edition, see p. 141 of the 1857 edition by Pfeiffer.
     My thanks to Dr. Matthew Milliner for the Facebook post that first flagged this passage for me.
     I'm not sure, though, that the whole of this is entirely orthodox (the Holy Spirit being the Love of the Father for the Son, not (?) the human being), but that last line is nice.

"Now it is no longer, 'Dust you are and to dust you shall return,' but 'You are joined to heaven and into heaven you shall be taken up.'"

Οὐκέτι, Γῆ εἶ καὶ γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ, ἀλλὰ τῷ οὐρανίῳ συναφθεὶς πρὸς οὐρανὸν ἀναληφθήσῃ.

     Saint Basil the Great, Homily no. 2 on the Theophany (or Epiphany, otherwise known as the homily In sanctam Christi generationem, On the holy birth of Christ) 6, as translated (for now) here.  Greek from p. 857 col. 1B of the 1839 De Sinner ("apud Gaume") reprint of the Garnier (or Maurist) edition of the Opera omnia of 1721-1730.  For a comment on the "technical" superiority of this edition, see p. 31 n. 5 of Mark DelCogliano, "Tradition and Polemic in Basil of Caesarea’s Homily on the Theophany," Vigiliae Christianae 66, no. 1 (2012) (where the CPG's revised position on its authenticity is also noted), and of course the latest (2022) edition of the ODCC.  Holman and DelCogliano, by contrast (St. Basil the Great On fasting and feasts, Popular patristics series 50 (Yonkers, NY:  St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2013)), translate the edition of Luigi Gambero (L'omelia sulla generazione di Cristo di Basilo di Cesarea:  Il posto della vergine Maria, Marian studies library 13-14 (Dayton, OH:  University of Dayton, 1981-1982), 177-200).  Their translation of this sentence, on p. 39, runs as follows:

No longer are you dust and to dust you shall return; rather, joined now to heaven, you shall be taken up into heaven.

My thanks to Dr. Matthew Milliner for the Facebook post that introduced me to this passage.