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Methodius of Olympus

Ante-Nicene · to AD 325 · 201 passages across 33 books

Commentary

81–100 of 201
Habakkuk 2:20

But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

“When the time is come, you shall be shown forth.” What exposition does this require, if a person diligently direct the eye of the mind to the festival which we are now celebrating? “For then shall you be shown forth,” he says, “as upon a kingly charger, by your pure and chaste mother, in the temple, and that in the grace and beauty of the flesh assumed by you.” All these things the prophet, summing up for the sake of greater clearness, exclaims in brief: “The Lord is in his holy temple.” “Fear before him all the earth.”

ORATION CONCERNING SIMEON AND ANNA 4

Hebrews 1:1

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

Hebrews 1:3

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Of the most beautiful flower; the mother of the Creator; the nurse of the Nourisher; the circumference of Him who embraces all things; the upholder of Him

Hebrews 2:16

For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

That Lord, I say, who in His simple and immaterial Deity, entered our nature, and of the virgin's womb became ineffably incarnate; that Lord, who was partaker of nothing else save the lump of Adam, who was by the serpent tripped up. For the Lord laid not hold of the seed of angels
Hebrews 4:14

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

For I also, taking my journey, and going forth from the Egypt of this life, came first to the resurrection, which is the true Feast of the Tabernacles, and there having set up my tabernacle, adorned with the fruits of virtue, on the first day of the resurrection, which is the day of judgment, celebrate with Christ the millennium of rest, which is called the seventh day, even the true Sabbath. Then again from thence I, a follower of Jesus, "who hath entered into the heavens"
Hebrews 9:4

Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;

The pledge and earnest of a perpetual priesthood, furnished no contemptible symbol of thy supernatural child-bearing.
On thy account, and the undefiled Incarnation of God, the Word, which by thee had place for the sake of that flesh which immutably and indivisibly remains with Him for ever.
Hebrews 10:1

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

Hebrews 10:32

But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

Is the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, of whom the illuminated

Hebrews 11:10

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

And the Jews declared that the shadow of the image (of the heavenly things which was afforded to them), was the third from the reality; but we clearly behold the image of the heavenly order; for the truth will be accurately made manifest after the resurrection, when we shall see the heavenly tabernacle (the city in heaven "whose builder and maker is God"
Hebrews 11:23

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.

For consider what confidence Seth had towards God, and Abel, and Enos, and Enoch, and Methuselah, and Noah, the first lovers of righteousness, and the first of the first-born children who are written in heaven,
Hebrews 12:15

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

Isaiah 44:4

And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.

For everywhere the divine writings take the willow as the type of chastity, because when its flower is steeped in water, if it is drunk, it extinguishes whatever kindles sensual desires and passions within us, until it renders completely barren and makes every inclination to the begetting of children without effect, as also Homer indicated, for this reason calling the willows destructive of fruit.… For as it is the nature of this tree to bud and grow to maturity when enriched by words, so it is the nature of virginity to blossom and grow to maturity when enriched by words, so that one can hang one's body on it.If, then, the rivers of Babylon are the streams of voluptuousness, as wise people say, which confuse and disturb the soul, then the willows must be chastity, to which we may suspend and draw up the organs of lust that overbalance and weigh down the mind, so that they may not be borne down by the torrents of incontinence and be drawn like worms to impurity and corruption.

SYMPOSIUM OR BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 4:3-4

Isaiah 45:18

For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

For in reality God did not establish the universe in vain or to no purpose but destruction, as those weak-minded people say, but to exist and be inhabited and continue. Therefore the earth and the heaven must exist again after the conflagration and shaking of all things.

ON THE RESURRECTION 1:8

Isaiah 51:6

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.

But if our opponents say, How then is it, if the universe is not destroyed, that the Lord says that “heaven and earth shall pass away,” and the prophet, that “the heaven shall perish as smoke” and “the earth shall grow old as a garment”; we answer, because it is usual for the Scriptures to call the change of the world from its present condition to a better and more glorious one destruction, as its earlier form is lost in the change of all things to a state of greater splendor, for there is neither contradiction nor absurdity in the Scriptures. For not “the world” but “the fashion of this world” passes away, it is said. So it is usual for the Scriptures to call the change from an earlier form to a better and more comely state “destruction”; just as when one calls by the name of “destruction” the change from a childish form into a perfect adult, as the stature of the child is turned into mature size and beauty.

ON THE RESURRECTION 1:9

Isaiah 52:2

Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

The creation, then, after being restored to a better and more fitting state, remains, rejoicing and exulting over the children of God at the resurrection. For their sake the creation now groans and travails, waiting itself also for our redemption from the corruption of the body, that, when we have risen and shaken off the mortality of the flesh, according to that which is written, “shake off the dust, and arise and sit down, O Jerusalem,” and have been set free from sin, it also shall be freed from corruption and be subject no longer to vanity but to righteousness.

ON THE RESURRECTION 1:8

Isaiah 60:1

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

Hail and shine, thou Jerusalem, for thy light is come, the Light eternal, the Light forever enduring, the Light supreme, the Light immaterial, the Light of same substance with God and the Father, the Light that is in the Spirit, and that is the Father; the Light that illumines the ages; the Light that gives light to mundane and supramundane things, Christ our very God.

ORATION CONCERNING SIMEON AND ANNA 13

Isaiah 60:3

And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

It is the church whose children shall come to it with all speed after the resurrection, running to it from all quarters. [The church] rejoices, receiving the light that never goes down and clothed with the brightness of the Word as with a robe. For with what other more precious or honorable ornament was it becoming that the queen should be adorned, to be led as a bride to the Lord, when she had received a garment of light and therefore was called by the Father? Come then, let us go forward in our discourse and look on this marvelous woman as on virgins prepared for a marriage, pure and undefiled, perfect and radiating a permanent beauty, lacking nothing of the brightness of light; and instead of a dress, clothed with light itself; and instead of precious stones, her head adorned with shining stars.

SYMPOSIUM OR BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 8:5

Isaiah 66:7

Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.

“Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before her pains came, she escaped and delivered a male child.” Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? The most holy virgin mother, therefore, escaped entirely the manner of women even before she gave birth, doubtless in order that with the Holy Spirit betrothing her to himself and sanctifying her, she might conceive without intercourse with man. She has brought forth her firstborn Son, even the only-begotten Son of God … who on earth, in the Virgin’s nuptial chamber, joined to himself the nature of Adam, like a bridegroom, by an inalienable union, and he preserved his mother’s purity incorrupt and uninjured; him in short who in heaven was begotten without corruption and on earth birthed in a manner quite unspeakable.

ORATION CONCERNING SIMEON AND ANNA 3

Jeremiah 1:5

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

So, if God still forms human beings, shall we not be guilty of audacity if we think of the generation of children as something offensive when even the Almighty is not ashamed to make use of them in working with his undefiled hands.

BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 2:2

Jeremiah 18:3-6

Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

The prophet Jeremiah addresses the Jews in these words: “And I went down to the potter’s house. Behold, he made a work on the stones. The vessel that he made in his hands was broken. Again he made another vessel, as it pleased him to make it. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Cannot I do to you as this potter, O house of Israel? Behold, you are like the clay of the potter in my hands.’ ” For I call your attention to this, that, as I said, after human transgression the great Hand was not content to leave as a trophy of victory its own work, debased by the evil one, who wickedly injured it from motives of envy, but moistened and reduced it to clay, as a potter breaks up a vessel, that by the remodeling of it all the blemishes and bruises in it may disappear, and it may be made afresh faultless and pleasing.

ON THE RESURRECTION 1:6-7

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