Patristic Wisdom: Looking to Holy Trinity Sunday

Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. (Acts 2:29–32)

Observe how, at the beginning of his discourse, he does not say that Jesus Himself had sent Him, but the Father: now, however, that he has mentioned His signs and the things done to Him by the Jews, and has spoken of His resurrection, he boldly introduces what he has to say about these matters, again adducing themselves as witnesses by both senses: which you now see and hear. And of the resurrection, he has made continual mention, but of their outrageous deed he has spoken once for all. And having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. This again is great. The promise, he says: because before His Passion. Observe how he now makes it all His, covertly making a great point. For if it was He that poured it forth, it is of Him that the Prophet has spoken above, In the last days I will pour forth of My Spirit on My servants, and on My handmaids, and I will do wonders in the heaven above. Observe what he secretly puts into it! But then, because it was a great thing, he again veils it with the expression of His having received of the Father. He has spoken of the good things fulfilled, of the signs; has said, that He is king, the point that touched them; has said, that it is He that gives the Spirit. (For, however much a person may say, if it does not issue in something advantageous, he speaks to no purpose.) Just as John: The Same, says he, shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And it shows that the Cross not only did not make Him less, but rendered Him even more illustrious, seeing that of old God promised it to Him, but now has given it. Or the promise which He promised to us. He so foreknew it about to be and has given it to us greater after the resurrection. And, has poured Him out, he says; not requiring worthiness: and not simply given, but with abundance.

John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 6

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to Pentecost

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1–4)

But let us look over what has been said from the beginning. It filled, he says, the house. That wind was a very pool of water. This betokened the copiousness, as the fire did the vehemence. This nowhere happened in the case of the Prophets: for to uninebriated souls such accesses are not attended with much disturbance; but “when they have well drunken,” then indeed it is as here, but with the Prophets, it is otherwise. The scroll of a book is given to him, and Ezekiel ate what he was about to utter. And it became in his mouth, it is said, like honey for sweetness. (And again the hand of God touches the tongue of another Prophet; but here it is the Holy Spirit Himself: so equal is He in honor with the Father and the Son.) And again, on the other hand, Ezekiel calls it, Lamentations, and mourning, and woe. To them, it might well be in the form of a book; for they still needed similitudes. Those had to deal with only one nation, and with their own people; but these with the whole world, and with men whom they never knew. Also, Elisha receives the grace through the medium of a mantle; another by oil, like David; and Moses by fire, as we read of him at the bush. But in the present case it is not so; for the fire itself sat upon them. (But wherefore did the fire not appear so as to fill the house? Because they would have been terrified.) But the story shows that it is the same here as there. For you are not to stop at this, that there appeared unto them cloven tongues, but note that they were of fire. Such a fire as this is able to kindle infinite fuel. Also, it is well said, Cloven, for they were from one root: that you may learn, that it was an operation sent from the Comforter.

John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 4

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Seventh Sunday of Easter

Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. (John 17:11b–19)

Those then, He says, who have received Your Word, O Father, through Me, show forth My Likeness in themselves and are conformed to the pattern of Your own Son, who, like Him, pass unscathed through the ocean of the world’s wickedness, and have shown themselves foreigners and strangers to the love of pleasure in this life, and every kind of vice. Therefore sanctify them in Your truth, for exceeding purity is inherent in Christ. For He is truly God, and cannot be subject to sin nor endure it, but is rather the fountain of all goodness, and the beauty of holiness. For the Divine Nature, that rules over all, can do nothing but what is in truth suitable and belongs thereto. And the holy disciples, I mean all who believe on Him, cannot otherwise exhibit purity unspotted by the wickedness of this world than by means of forgiveness and grace from above, which puts away the defilement of previous offenses and the accusing sins of their past lives; and, further, conferring on them the glory of a life of sanctification, though their continuance therein is not free from conflict, as Paul wisely teaches us, saying: Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. For our life is cast upon the deep, and we are tossed by several storms, as the devil tempts without ceasing, and continually assails and strives to defile if he can, by the insidious inventions of malice, even those who have been already made pure. For his meat is well-chosen, as the prophet says. Having then borne witness to His disciples that their life was out of the world, and that they were conformed to the likeness of His own essential purity, He proceeds to pray to His Father to keep them.

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John 11.9

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Sixth Sunday of Easter

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:9–17)

How great a measure can a man then find to the love of Christ, He Himself shows when He says that nothing can be greater than such love, which excites to forsake life itself for those one loves. And by all this, He not only exhorts His own disciples that it becomes them so little to shrink from fearing to encounter dangers for those they love but that also He Himself without shrinking held Himself in utmost readiness to undergo the death of the flesh. For the power of our Savior’s love attained so great a measure. And these words were borne out by His action, and by His encouragement to His disciples to attain an exceedingly great and extraordinary courage, and by His exhorting them to the perfection of brotherly love, and fencing their hearts with the armor of enthusiasm and love of God, and raising them up into a zeal invincible and undaunted, so as impetuously to hasten to establish everything according to His good pleasure.…

When therefore, then, he has abundantly comforted them with the words of consolation, and with respect to those things at which they would be likely to be cast down, persuading them in turn to rejoice, He again incites them by His injunctions to diligence to a confident courage; persuading them to change their minds and rather to rejoice at those things at which they had not without reason been dismayed, and charges them to display the utmost zeal, and put into practice an overflowing measure of brotherly love, and to benefit those as yet without faith, and to hasten by the words and deeds that make for righteousness to draw those who are astray to a willingness to be united to God by faith.

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John 10