Eusebius: "The only King of all creation"

“THE true Christ, the divine and heavenly Logos, the only High Priest of the world, the only King of all creation, the only Archprophet of prophets of the Father.”

~Eusebius Pamphili, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine (AD 260 - 340): Ecclesiastical History, I, 3, 8.

St. Gregory of Nyssa: "The purifying fire"

"IF a man distinguish in himself what is peculiarly human from that which is irrational, and if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted, overcoming the irrational by reason. If he have inclined to the irrational pressure of the passions, using for the passions the cooperating hide of things irrational, he may afterward in a quite different manner be very much interested in what is better, when, after his departure out of the body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire."

~St. Gregory of Nyssa: Excerpt from Sermon on the Dead. (A.D. 382)

11th century mosaic of St. Gregory of Nyssa.
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine.

Saints

“What saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it?”
—St. Jerome: Letters, 22, 39.

“And if among all the saints some are more saintly than others, it is only because God dwells in them more abundantly.”
—St. Augustine: Letters 187.

Crucifixion and Saints, by Fra Angelico.
Fresco,1441-42; Convento di San Marco, Florence.

St. Augustine: "God, towards whom faith rouses us"

 St. Augustine, by Vincenzo Foppa

"God, from whom to be turned away, is to fall: to whom to be turned back, is to rise again: in whom to abide, is to stand firm. God, from whom to go forth, is to die: to whom to return, is to revive: in whom to have our dwelling, is to live. God, whom no one loses, unless deceived: whom no one seeks, unless stirred up: whom no one finds, unless made pure. God, whom to forsake, is one thing with perishing; towards whom to tend, is one thing with living: whom to see is one thing with having. God, towards whom faith rouses us, hope lifts us up, with whom love joins us."
~St. Augustine: Soliloquies, I, 3.

St. Gregory the Great: "Life of the Pastor"

St. Gregory the Great,
by Bicci di Lorenzo.

OFTEN, however, a spiritual director swells with pride by virtue of being placed in a position of authority over others. Because everything serves his needs and his orders are quickly performed according to his wishes and all of the laity praise him for the things he does well but have no authority to critique what goes wrong, and because they often praise what should really be rebuked, the mind of the priest is often seduced by the approval of those below him, and as a consequence he is exalted inordinately. And while he is outwardly encircled with immense favor, internally he loses his sense of truth. Forgetful of who he is, he scatters himself among the voices of others and believes what he hears them say about him rather than what he should discern about himself from within. [Such a leader] despises the laity and does not believe that they are his equal by nature. And those whom he surpassed by the accident of power, he believes himself to have transcended by the merits of his life. He estimates that he is wiser than those whom he sees himself to have surpassed in rank. Indeed, he constructs his own elated sense of self, and though he shares the same natural conditions as others, he disdains to regard others as his equal. Instead, he brings himself into equality with the one of whom it is written in Scripture: “He sees every high and is king over all the sons of pride.” [Job 41.25] the one who desired a singular height and despised a life in common with the angels said: “I will place my seat in the north and I will be like the Most High.” [Isa 14.13-14] Through a fitting judgment, this one came upon an internal downfall while he outwardly exalted himself on the height of power. In like manner, whenever someone disdains to be like other humans, it is as if he became an apostate angel.

Such was the case of Saul, who after cultivating the merit of humility, later became swollen with pride because of his temporal authority. For his humility he was preferred, for his pride he was rejected, as the Lord attests, saying: “When you were little in your own sight, did I not make you the head of the tribes of Israel?” [1 Sam 15.17] He had previously seen himself to be of little consequence, but after he received temporal authority, he began to think of himself as greater than everyone else. In a wonderful way, when he was small to himself, he was great to the Lord; but when he thought of himself as great, he became small to the Lord. For often when a soul is inflated because of the authority it holds over the laity, it becomes corrupted and moved to pride by the allure of power. In truth, one controls this power well if he knows how both to temper and to assert it. For he controls this power well if he knows how to use to gain a mastery over sin and also knows how to mingle with others as equals. For the human mind is subject to pride even when it is not propped up by a position of authority. How much more, then, does it exalt itself when it is combined with temporal power? But he dispenses his power over the laity rightly if he is careful to take what is useful and reject what is tempting and also if he uses it to realize his equality with others and put himself before sinners with an avenging zeal.

~St. Gregory the Great (c. 540 – 604)

Excerpted from The Book of Pastoral Rule: St. Gregory the Great (Popular Patristics Series), Part II.

“It is worth noting that Gregory was the only Latin author of the patristic era whose works were translated into Greek during his own lifetime. Most notably, after reading the Book of Pastoral Rule, the Byzantine emperor Maurice ordered the book to be translated and disseminated to every bishop in his empire.” (From the Introduction)

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St. Isidore: On Heresy

“THEREFORE, heresy is so called from the Greek word meaning ‘choice,’ by which each chooses according to his own will what he pleases to teach or believe. But we are not permitted to believe whatever we choose, nor to choose whatever someone else has believed. We have the apostles of God as authorities, who did not themselves of their own will choose what they would believe, but faithfully transmitted to the nations the teaching received from Christ. So, even if an angel from heaven should preach otherwise, he shall be called anathema.”

~St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636): Etymologies, 8, 3.

Statue of Isidore of Seville by José Alcoverro, 1892,
outside the Biblioteca Nacional de España, in Madrid.
(Photo credit: Luis García)

St. Leo the Great: For the Feast of S. Laurence, Martyr

Sermon 85

On the Feast of S. Laurence the Martyr (Aug. 10).

I. The example of the martyrs is most valuable

Whilst the height of all virtues, dearly-beloved, and the fullness of all righteousness is born of that love, wherewith God and one's neighbour is loved, surely in none is this love found more conspicuous and brighter than in the blessed martyrs; who are as near to our Lord Jesus, Who died for all men, in the imitation of His love, as in the likeness of their suffering. For, although that Love, wherewith the Lord has redeemed us, cannot be equalled by any man's kindness, because it is one thing that a man who is doomed to die one day should die for a righteous man, and another that One Who is free from the debt of sin should lay down His life for the wicked (Rm 5:7-8): yet the martyrs also have done great service to all men, in that the Lord Who gave them boldness, has used it to show that the penalty of death and the pain of the cross need not be terrible to any of His followers, but might be imitated by many of them. If therefore no good man is good for himself alone, and no wise man's wisdom befriends himself only, and the nature of true virtue is such that it leads many away from the dark error on which its light is shed, no model is more useful in teaching God's people than that of the martyrs. Eloquence may make intercession easy, reasoning may effectually persuade; but yet examples are stronger than words, and there is more teaching in practice than in precept.

II. The Saint's martyrdom described

And how gloriously strong in this most excellent manner of doctrine the blessed martyr Laurentius is, by whose sufferings today is marked, even his persecutors were able to feel, when they found that his wondrous courage, born principally of love for Christ, not only did not yield itself, but also strengthened others by the example of his endurance. For when the fury of the gentile potentates was raging against Christ's most chosen members, and attacked those especially who were of priestly rank, the wicked persecutor's wrath was vented on Laurentius the deacon, who was pre-eminent not only in the performance of the sacred rites, but also in the management of the church's property , promising himself double spoil from one man's capture: for if he forced him to surrender the sacred treasures, he would also drive him out of the pale of true religion. And so this man, so greedy of money and such a foe to the truth, arms himself with double weapon: with avarice to plunder the gold; with impiety to carry off Christ. He demands of the guileless guardian of the sanctuary that the church wealth on which his greedy mind was set should be brought to him. But the holy deacon showed him where he had them stored, by pointing to the many troops of poor saints, in the feeding and clothing of whom he had a store of riches which he could not lose, and which were the more entirely safe that the money had been spent on so holy a cause.

III. The description of his sufferings continued

The baffled plunderer, therefore, frets, and blazing out into hatred of a religion, which had put riches to such a use, determines to pillage a still greater treasure by carrying off that sacred deposit , wherewith he was enriched, as he could find no solid hoard of money in his possession. He orders Laurentius to renounce Christ, and prepares to ply the deacon's stout courage with frightful tortures: and, when the first elicit nothing, fiercer follow. His limbs, torn and mangled by many cutting blows, are commanded to be broiled upon the fire in an iron framework , which was of itself already hot enough to burn him, and on which his limbs were turned from time to time, to make the torment fiercer, and the death more lingering.

IV. Laurentius has conquered his persecutor

You gain nothing, you prevail nothing, O savage cruelty. His mortal frame is released from your devices, and, when Laurentius departs to heaven, you are vanquished. The flame of Christ's love could not be overcome by your flames, and the fire which burnt outside was less keen than that which blazed within. You but served the martyr in your rage, O persecutor: you but swelled the reward in adding to the pain. For what did your cunning devise, which did not redound to the conqueror's glory, when even the instruments of torture were counted as part of the triumph? Let us rejoice, then, dearly-beloved, with spiritual joy, and make our boast over the happy end of this illustrious man in the Lord, "Who is wonderful in His saints," in whom He has given us a support and an example, and has so spread abroad his glory throughout the world, that, from the rising of the sun to its going down, the brightness of his deacon's light does shine, and Rome has become as famous in Laurentius as Jerusalem was ennobled by Stephen. By his prayer and intercession we trust at all times to be assisted; that, because all, as the Apostle says, "who wish to live holily in Christ, suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12)," we may be strengthened with the spirit of love, and be fortified to overcome all temptations by the perseverance of steadfast faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc.
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Source. Translated by Charles Lett Feltoe. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.)

Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, by Fra Angelico.
Fresco, 1147-49; Cappella Niccolina, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican.