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Before The Pumpkins: The Road To The Lions

...ts of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. (Letter to the Romans, 4–5) Ignatius did not seek death out of despair or self-glorification. He saw in his coming trial an opportunity to be conformed perfectly to his Lord suffering as he did. His martyrdom was not an act of “fanaticism” but of deep love, a participation in the suffering of Christ, and he viewed it as a way to complete his race (2 Timothy 4:7). Sharing in Christ’s Passion In Philippians 3:10, Paul writes of his desire “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”. Ignatius embodied this verse...

Lent Day 32: Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures: Lecture XXI

...es of the devil” (Eph 6:11). Then after this was done, and having been “counted worthy” to receive this anointing, they are then “called Christians” living up to the name through their new birth. Cyril goes on to explain how this type of anointing was prefigured in the Old Testament through Moses “bathing [Aaron] in water, he anointed him … and made him High-priest”. To them however these things happened in a figure, but to you not in a figure, but in truth; because you were truly anointed by the Holy Ghost. Christ is the beginning of your salvation Cyril closes this lecture by encouraging his students to remain “unblemished” in th...

Lent Day 35: Ambrose of Milan: Concerning the Mysteries: 1-4

...unced the devil by facing West, and then turning East towards Christ, as though face to face, they declared their acceptance of Him. The bishop gives a message or blessing to the convert, who is instructed to acknowledge him as though he were an angel of the Lord, and to not pay attention to his outward appearance as a man, but to respect the Office he holds as an authority. God’s presence in baptism “What did you see?”, Ambrose rhetorically asks about the baptism. Water, of course, but not only that: apart from the bishop and deacons ministering during this time, God is also present in the waters. Quoting Paul from 2 Corinthians 4:18, he makes the point...

Before The Pumpkins: The Day Two Women Defied Rome

...vices the devil used to end their lives. They remind us that the cloud of witnesses includes every kind of believer — rich and poor, male and female, young and old — all joined by the same unshakable confession: “Jesus is Lord”. As we remember them today, may we find courage for our own smaller trials, and be inspired by those who stood on the sand of the arena before us: standing on the shoulders of giants, and walking in the steps of Christ, who first endured the Further Reading Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas...

An Examination of Conditional Immortality (Part One)

...that the devil will eventually perish as well, along with everything that doesn’t belong to the Lord. A little later on from these text around AD 130, the anonymous Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus gives a similar interpretation that “death” truly means death and that the fire consumes those in it “even to the end”, implying the condemned survive long enough to be punished, but will eventually be consumed by the fire: …when thou shalt despise that which is here esteemed to be death, when thou shalt fear what is truly death, which is reserved for those who shall be condemned to the eternal fire, which shall afflict those even to the end that are co...

Lent Day 38: Leo the Great: Sermon XXI (On the Nativity Feast I)

...ating the devil and death (Gal 4:4). And so it was, “the Word of God, Himself God, the Son of God”, the one who was in the beginning with God; the one by which all things came into being (Jn 1:1-3), came with the purpose of saving us from “eternal death” by “bending Himself to take on Him our humility”. By doing this, the Word did not “decrease in His own majesty”, but he remained “what He was and [assumed] what He was not”. This was so that he “might unite the true form of a slave to that form in which He is equal to God the Father”; this then joined “both natures together by such a compact that the lower should not be swallowed up...