Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Gregory of Nyssa on Song of Songs
Comment on Song of Songs 1:13...
The location of the heart is said by experts to lie between the two breasts. Here is where the bride says that she has the sachet in which her treasure is kept. Also, the heart is said to be a source of warmth from which the body's heat is distributed through the arteries. The body's members are thereby heated, animated and nourished by the heart's fire. Therefore the bride has received the good odor of Christ in the governing part of the soul and has made her own heart a kind of sachet for such incense. And so she makes all her actions, like parts of the body, seethe with the breath from her heart so that no iniquity can cool her love for God in any member of her body.
Homilies on the Song of Songs 3 in J. Robert Wright, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: OT IX (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 306-307.
The location of the heart is said by experts to lie between the two breasts. Here is where the bride says that she has the sachet in which her treasure is kept. Also, the heart is said to be a source of warmth from which the body's heat is distributed through the arteries. The body's members are thereby heated, animated and nourished by the heart's fire. Therefore the bride has received the good odor of Christ in the governing part of the soul and has made her own heart a kind of sachet for such incense. And so she makes all her actions, like parts of the body, seethe with the breath from her heart so that no iniquity can cool her love for God in any member of her body.
Homilies on the Song of Songs 3 in J. Robert Wright, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: OT IX (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 306-307.
Gregory of Elvira on the Song of Songs
Explanation of the Song of Songs 3.29
These two hands are the two covenants of the old law and the gospel. When it refers to his left hand, it indicates the old covenant, but the right hand is the preaching of the gospel. The old covenant is inferior because it is placed beneath the head of the church, who is Christ, whereas the right hand embraced the church, meaning that old sins were covered by the sacraments of the gospel. Whoever goes forth in faith, therefore, and serves Christ with devotion, leaves the old person beneath himself and embraces anew the body of Christ, which is the church.
Gregory of Elvira in J. Robert Wright, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: OT IX (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 314.
These two hands are the two covenants of the old law and the gospel. When it refers to his left hand, it indicates the old covenant, but the right hand is the preaching of the gospel. The old covenant is inferior because it is placed beneath the head of the church, who is Christ, whereas the right hand embraced the church, meaning that old sins were covered by the sacraments of the gospel. Whoever goes forth in faith, therefore, and serves Christ with devotion, leaves the old person beneath himself and embraces anew the body of Christ, which is the church.
Gregory of Elvira in J. Robert Wright, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: OT IX (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 314.
Ambrose on the Song of Songs
Comment on 8:1-4
What are the breasts of the church except the sacrament of baptism? And well does he say "sucking," as if the baptized were seeking him as a draught of snowy milk. "Finding you without," he says, "I shall kiss you," that is, finding you outside the body, I embrace you with the kiss of mystical peace. No one shall despise you; no one shall shut you out. I will introduce you into the inner sanctuary and hidden places of Mother Church, and into all the secrets of mystery, so that you may drink the cup of spiritual grace.
Ambrose, Consolation on the Death of Emperor Valentinian, 75 in J. Robert Wright, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: OT IX (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 362.
What are the breasts of the church except the sacrament of baptism? And well does he say "sucking," as if the baptized were seeking him as a draught of snowy milk. "Finding you without," he says, "I shall kiss you," that is, finding you outside the body, I embrace you with the kiss of mystical peace. No one shall despise you; no one shall shut you out. I will introduce you into the inner sanctuary and hidden places of Mother Church, and into all the secrets of mystery, so that you may drink the cup of spiritual grace.
Ambrose, Consolation on the Death of Emperor Valentinian, 75 in J. Robert Wright, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: OT IX (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 362.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Goal of Study
Read whatever chapter of Scripture you will, and be ever so delighted with it--yet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchaged as it found you unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and brought you into full union with and dependence upon him.
William Law, The Power of the Spirit (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1971), 19 quoted in Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, 140.
William Law, The Power of the Spirit (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1971), 19 quoted in Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, 140.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Origen and Literal Meaning
Let no one suspect that we hold that Scripture does not contain real history, or that the precepts of the Law are not to be observed to the letter, or that what is written of the Savior did not happen in reality...Much more numerous are the truly historical passages than those which are to be taken in the purely spiritual sense.
Origen, On First Principles in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 35
Origen, On First Principles in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 35
Hermeneutic of Love
Whoever, therefore, thinks he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand them at all.
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 47
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, in George Montague, Understanding the Bible, 47
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)