Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Second Sunday of Easter

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. (Revelation 1:4–8, 12–18)

He means that it was to Him who loved us that glory and might are due. For how did He not love who “gave Himself as a ransom” for the life of the world? And to Him who washed us from our sins by his blood: for He Himself removed “the bond which stood against us with its legal demands, and He nailed it to the” wood of His “cross,” paying for our sins by His own death, and with His own blood setting us free from our transgressions. He did this by “becoming subject unto death, even death on the cross,” and so healing our disobedience. And appointed a kingdom for us: and what is the advantage of our becoming, as he says, priests to God and His prophets? That human beings should have been considered worthy of these both confirms for us the kingdom to come and promises ineffable glory in the present. For this is greater and more wonderful than washing away our sins in his own blood, and deserves to be called the gift of God, just as our appointment as priests and prophets of God without having made any kind of previous offering is the mark of such a gift.

And His feet, he says, were like burnished bronze: he refers to the bronze mined on Mount Lebanon as being pure even in itself and as rendered even purer when it has been refined in a furnace and cleansed of its slight impurity. In this way the steadfastness and constancy, as well as the brightness and glory, of faith in Christ is signified when it has come to assurance. For the apostle calls Christ “a rock,” and Isaiah calls Him “a precious stone” in the foundations “of Zion.” Else he means that the burnished bronze is the copper-colored frankincense which medical men are accustomed to call male. This is fragrant when burnt; for the fiery furnace represents the symbol of the burning of incense, which is the foundation of the preaching of the gospel—for the feet are the foundation of the rest of the body, which is Christ. For He is fragrant, and with spiritual fragrance he gives charm to the things in heaven and the things on earth. Paul, too, calls Christ “a foundation” in writing the first epistle to the Corinthians, saying, “Like a wise master-builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds upon it. Let each one take care how he builds on it. For no one can lay any other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse 1.13, 27