Saying Socrates ~ test of three

 

In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance, who ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”

“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me, I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Test of Three.”

“Test of Three?”

“That’s correct,” Socrates continued.

“Before you talk to me about my student let’s take a moment to test what you’re going to say. The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man replied, “actually I just heard about it.”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second test, the test of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?”

“No, on the contrary.”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him even though you’re not certain it’s true?” The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued, “You may still pass though because there is a third test – the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?”

The man was defeated and ashamed and said no more.

thanks to source:

https://betterchancery.com/2017/03/15/socratess-test-of-three/

 

Icon Theotokos the Protector of the unborn

 

Icon of the little ones slain

 

The Three parts of the soul ~ Appettive, Incensive, and Intelligent

 

St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory the Theologian, Lorenzo Scupoli, St. Gregory Palamas and Plato.

According to our wise teacher (St. Gregory of Nyssa) the soul is tripartite. 

When virtue is in the mental part it is called circumspection, sagacity and wisdom. 

When it is in the desiring part it is called chastity, love and self-mastery. 

When it is in the excitable part it is called courage and patience. 

~ Abba Evagrius the Monk(Texts on Active Life no. 61)

Every deiform soul is tripartite, according to Gregory the Theologian. 

Virtue, when established in the intelligence, he calls discretion, understanding and wisdom; 

and when in the incensive power, he calls it courage and patience; 

and when in the faculty of desire, he calls it love, self-restraint and self-control.

~ St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic (A Century of Spiritual Texts no. 24)

Our soul has three parts or powers - the thinking, the desiring and the excitable. 

Owing to their corruption, these three powers give birth to three corresponding kinds of wrong thoughts and movements. 

The thinking power gives birth to thoughts of ingratitude to God and complaints, forgetfulness of God, ignorance of divine things, ill-judgment and all kinds of blasphemous thoughts. 

The desiring power gives birth to pleasure-loving thoughts, thoughts of vain-glory, love of money and all their numerous ramifications, belonging to the domain of self-indulgence. 

The excitable power gives birth to thoughts of anger, hatred, envy, revenge, gloating, ill-will, and generally to all evil thoughts. 

~ Lorenzo Scupoli (Unseen Warfare:Chapter 1

The soul is tripartite and is considered as having three powers: the intelligent, the incensive, and the appetitive. 

Because the soul was ill in all three powers, Christ, the soul's Healer, began His cure with the last, the appetitive. 

For desire unsatisfied fuels the incensive power, and when both the appetitive and incensive powers are sick they produce distraction of mind. 

Thus the soul's incensive power will never be healthy before the appetitive power is healed; 

nor will the intelligence be healthy until the other two powers are first restored to health. 

~ St. Gregory Palamas (To the Most Reverend Nun Xenia no. 29)

Human behaviour flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

~ Plato

thanks to:

https://www.orthodox.net/gleanings/soul.html

Sayings St. Anatoly the Younger ~ The demons in Christ's Church

 

From a letter of the Optina Elder [and New Martyr] St. Anatoly the Younger
SOURCE: Orthodox Life, #3, 1993

And from that heresies will spread everywhere and deceive many people. The enemy of the human race will act with cunning in order to draw into heresy, if possible, even the elect.

He will not begin by crudely rejecting the dogmas of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ and the virtue of the Theotokos, but he will begin imperceptibly to distort the teachings and statutes of the Church and their very spirit, handed down to us by the Holy Fathers through the Holy Spirit.

Few will notice these wiles of the enemy, only those more experienced in the spiritual life. Heretics will seize power over the Church and will place their servants everywhere; the pious will be regarded with contempt. He (the Lord) said, by their fruits ye shall know them, and so, by their fruits, as well as by the actions of the heretics, strive to distinguish them from the true pastors.

These are spiritual thieves, plundering the spiritual flock, and they will enter the sheepfold (the Church), climbing up some other way, using force and trampling upon the divine statutes. The Lord calls them robbers (cf. St. John 10:1). Indeed, their first task will be the persecution of the true pastors, their imprisonment and exile, for without this it will be impossible for them to plunder the sheep.

Therefore, my son, when you see the violation of patristic tradition and the divine order in the Church, the order established by God, know that the heretics have already appeared, although for the time being they may conceal their impiety, or they will distort the Divine Faith imperceptibly, in order to succeed better in seducing and enticing the inexperienced into the net.

The persecution will be directed against not only pastors but against all servants of God, for all those ruled by heresy will not endure piety. Recognize these wolves in sheep’s clothing by their proud dispositions and love of power. They will be slanderers, traitors, everywhere sowing enmity and malice; therefore the Lord said that by their fruits you will know them. True servants of God are humble, love their neighbor and are obedient to the Church.

Monastics will be greatly oppressed by the heretics and monastic life will be scorned. Monasteries will become scarce, the number of monastics will decline, and those who remain will endure violence. These haters of monastic life, however, having only the appearance of piety, will strive to attract the monks to their side promising them protection and worldly goods, and threatening those who oppose them with expulsion.

These threats will cause great despair among the fainthearted, but you, my son rejoice that you have lived until that time, for then the faithful who have not shown any other virtues, will receive crowns merely for standing firm in the faith, according to the word of the Lord (cf. St. Matthew 10:32).

Fear the Lord my son. Fear to lose the crown prepared (for you), fear to be cast by Christ into the outer darkness and eternal torment. Stand bravely in the faith, and if necessary, endure persecution and other sorrows, for the Lord will be with you… and the holy martyrs and confessors, they will look upon you and your struggle with joy.

But woe to the monks in those days who will be bound with possessions and riches, who because of love of peace will be ready to submit to the heretics. They will lull to sleep their conscience, saying, “We are preserving and saving the monastery and the Lord will forgive us.” The unfortunate and blind ones do not at all consider that through heresy the demons will enter the monastery and then it will no longer be a holy monastery, but merely walls from which grace will depart.

God, however, is mightier than the enemy, and He will never leave His servants. True Christians will remain until the end of this age, only they will choose to live in secluded, deserted places. Do not fear sorrows, rather fear pernicious heresy, for it strips us of grace and separates us from Christ. This is why the Lord commanded us to consider the heretic as a pagan and a publican.

And so my son, strengthen yourself in the grace of Jesus Christ. Hasten to confess the faith, to endure suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (cf II St. Timothy 2:13), Who has said, Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life (Rev.2:10).

To Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honor, glory, and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.

thanks for posting:

https://www.monomakhos.com/a-prophesy-of-future-lawlessness-by-st-anatoly-the-younger-1922/

Sayings Socrates & Confucius ~ The importance of the meaning of words

 

You may be sure, dear Crito, that inaccurate language is not only in itself a mistake: it implants evil in men's souls.

~ Socrates (Phaedo, Plato)

If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.

~ Confucius

Icon ~ The Lover of the Innocents

 

Icon ~ Protectress of the Unborn

 

Canon 14 ~ A Bishop's Jurasdiction and Communion with other Bishops

 

Canon 14:

   A bishop is not to be allowed to leave his own parish, and pass over into another, although he may be pressed by many to do so, unless there be some proper cause constraining him. as if he can confer some greater benefit upon the persons of that place in the word of godliness. And this must be done not of his own accord, but by the judgment of many bishops, and at their earnest exhortation.

quoted from (comments section):

https://www.monomakhos.com/breaking-the-goa-legitimizes-gay-marriage-through-the-back-door/

Sayings St. John of Damascus ~ The right hand of the Father

 

   Christ sits in the body at the right hand of God the Father, but we do not hold that the right hand of the Father is actual place. For how could He that is uncircumscribed have a right hand limited by place? But we understand the right hand of the Father to be the glory and honor of the Godhead in which the Son of God, Who existed as God before the ages, and is of like essence to the Father, and in the end became flesh, has a seat in the body, His flesh sharing in the glory. For He along with His flesh is adored with one adoration by all creation.

~ St. John of Damascus

thanks to:

http://theodorakis.net/orthodoxquotescomplete.html

A Paschal Triumph ~ Christ' descent into hades (Hades meet God face to face!)

 

A Paschal Triumph

The very heart of Orthodox life is the Church’s celebration of Holy Pascha or Easter: commemoration and reliving of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The evening matins service of that feast includes a beautiful and poignant homily by St John Chrysostom on the mercy of God—displayed in Jesus’ parable of the workers of the eleventh hour—who welcomes repentant sinners at any moment, regardless of how well they may have “kept the fast.”

Another major motif of the sermon is the “harrowing of Hell.” Personified Hades—the realm and power of death—is mocked, embittered, slain and overthrown. Having taken the dead body of the man Jesus, Hades “met God face to face.”

The background of this motif, and of its depiction in the paschal icon of Christ’s Descent into Hell, is found in the First Epistle of Peter (3:18-19) as well as in an apocryphal gospel of the third or fourth century, the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus. The theme of the descent into Hell (actually, into Sheol, the realm of the departed, followed by the destruction of Hell) was widespread in the early Church. The Gospel of Nicodemus preserves a fascinating, even humorous account of the event in the form of a dialogue between Satan, “the son of perdition,” and Hades, who attempts to fend off Christ’s onslaught of the gates of Hell.

[The following excerpts are taken from The Other Bible (HarperSanFrancisco, 1984), pp. 376f.]

“I have pain in the stomach,” Hades declares to Satan. “Lazarus who was snatched from me before seems to me no good sign… Therefore I adjure you by your gifts and mine, do not bring him [Jesus] here. For I believe that he comes here to raise all the dead.

While Satan and Hades were speaking thus to one another, a loud voice like thunder sounded: “Lift up your gates, O rulers, and be lifted up, O everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in” (Ps. 23:7, LXX). When Hades heard this, he said to Satan, “Go out, if you can, and withstand him.” So Satan went out. Then Hades said to his demons, “Make fast well and strongly the gates of brass and the bars of iron…for if he comes in, woe will seize us…” [Again the voice sounds and angels announce the presence of “The Lord strong and mighty.”] And immediately at this answer the gates of brass were broken in pieces and the bars of iron were crushed, and all the dead who were bound were loosed from their chains. And the King of glory entered in like a man, and all the dark places of Hades were illumined.

Hades at once cried out: “We are defeated, woe to us. But who are you, who have such authority and power? And who are you, who without sin have come here, you who appear small and can do great things, who are humble and exalted, slave and master, and have authority over the dead and the living? You were nailed to the cross, and laid in the sepulcher, and now you have become free and have destroyed all our power. Are you Jesus, of whom the chief ruler Satan said to us that through the cross and death you would inherit the whole world?”

Then the King of glory seized the chief ruler Satan by the head and handed him over to the angels, saying: “Bind with iron fetters his hands and his feet and his neck and his mouth.” Then he gave him to Hades and said: “Take him and hold him fast until my second coming.”

[Hades upbraids Satan:] “How were you bent on bringing down such a man into this darkness, through whom you have been deprived of all who have died since the beginning?”

While Hades was thus speaking with Satan, the King of glory stretched out his right hand, and took hold of our forefather Adam and raised him up. Then he turned also to the rest and said: “Come with me, all you who have suffered death through the tree which this man touched. For behold, I raise you all up, again through the tree of the cross.” With that he put them all out. And our forefather Adam was seen to be full of joy, and said: “I give thanks to your majesty, O Lord, because you have brought me up from the lowest depth of Hades.” Likewise also all the prophets and the saints said: “We give you thanks, O Christ, Savior of the world, because you have brought up our life from destruction.”

When they had said this, the Savoir blessed Adam with the sign of the cross on his forehead. And he did this also to the patriarchs and prophets and martyrs and forefathers, and he took them and leaped up out of Hades. And as he went the holy fathers sang praises, following him and saying: “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord. Alleluia! To him be the glory of all the saints!”

In his homily St John Chrysostom evokes this triumphal imagery to proclaim the victory achieved by Christ through his death and resurrection. Like the paschal icon itself, Chrysostom calls to mind the life-giving truth that by his voluntary self-sacrifice, the eternal Son of God descends into death as a man, in order to raise us out of death, and to bestow on us the fullness of his own life and glory.

To all everywhere: CHRIST IS RISEN!

Thanks to:

https://www.oca.org/reflections/fr.-john-breck/a-paschal-triumph

Sayings Fr. John Meyendorff ~ St. Mary (Theotokos) & Institutional Feminism

 

   There is no doubt in my mind that the Protestant rejection of the veneration of Mary and its various consequences (such as, for example, the really "male-dominated" Protestant worship, deprived of sentiment, poetry and intuitive mystery-perception) is one of the psychological reasons which explains the recent emergence of institutional feminism.

~  Fr John Meyendorff

quote from:

from Man, Woman, and Priesthood, pp. 68-90, edited by Peter Moore, SPCK London, 1978.

Sayings Archbishop Athenagoras of Thyateira ~ Divinity and Humanity meet

 

   God in his love sent his Son to be a man, whilst in return humanity offered Saint Mary the Virgin to be the cleansed and perfected vessel in which humanity and divinity meet in the God-manhood of Christ.

~ Archbishop Athenagoras of Thyateira

quote from:

from Man, Woman, and Priesthood, pp. 68-90, edited by Peter Moore, SPCK London, 1978.

Sayings St. Barsanuphius ~ On the knowledge of Death

 

   Don't be deceived regarding the knowledge of what will be after your death: what you sow here, you will reap there. After leaving here, no one can make progress. Here is the work, there the reward; here the struggle, there the crowns.

(St. Barsanuphius the Great, Instructions, 606)

thanks to:

http://orthodox.cn/patristics/300sayings_en.htm

Sayings St. Irenaeus ~ Eternal Communion with God means

   

   God gives His communion to all who love Him. Communion with God is life and light and sweetness with all the good things that He has. But those who of their own will forsake him he rewards with separation from Him, which they themselves have chosen. As separation from light is darkness, so also alienation from God is deprivation of all good things which He has. But the good things of God are eternal and without end, so that the loss of them is eternal and without end. Thus sinners shall be the cause of their own torments, just as the blind do not see the light, although it is shining on them.

(St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, V.27)

thanks to:

http://orthodox.cn/patristics/300sayings_en.htm

The Death Prayer By Venerable Parthenius of Kiev

  The Death Prayer

By Venerable Parthenius of Kiev

1. When I, dejected by illness, feel the approach of the end of my earthly existence: Lord, have mercy on me.

2. When my poor heart, in its last beats, will languish and pine in deathly torments: Lord, have mercy on me.

3. When my eyes are watered for the last time with tears at the thought that during my life I offended You, O God, with my sins: Lord, have mercy on me.

4. When the frequent beating of the heart begins to hasten the exodus of my soul: Lord, have mercy on me.

5. When the mortal pallor of my face and my chilling body strike fear into my loved ones: Lord, have mercy on me.

6. When my vision is darkened and my voice is cut off, my tongue is petrified: Lord, have mercy on me.

7. When terrible spirits and visions begin to drive me to despair in Your mercy: Lord, have mercy on me.

8. When my soul, struck by the memories of my crimes and the fear of Your judgment, is exhausted in the struggle with the enemies of my salvation, who are trying to drag me into the region of the darkness of torment: Lord, have mercy on me.

9. When the sweat of death drenches me, and the soul with painful suffering will move away from the body: Lord, have mercy on me.

10. When the darkness of death closes all the objects of this world from my cloudy gaze: Lord, have mercy on me.

11. When all sensation ceases in my body, my veins become numb and my muscles turn to stone: Lord, have mercy on me.

12. When human voices and earthly sounds no longer reach my ears: Lord, have mercy on me.

13. When the soul comes before Your face, O God, in anticipation of Your appointment: Lord, have mercy on me.

14. When I begin to heed the just sentence of Your judgment, which determines my eternal fate: Lord, have mercy on me.

15. When the body, abandoned by the soul, becomes the prey of worms and corruption, and, finally, all my composition turns into a handful of dust: Lord, have mercy on me.

16. When the trumpet will quicken everyone at Your second coming and the book of my deeds will open: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, Your sinful servant (name). Into Your hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit. Amen.

thanks to:

https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2022/03/the-death-prayer-of-venerable.html?m=1

2 Peter 1:5-11

 

5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control [a]perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither [b]barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Sayings Saint Gregory Palamas ~ What is changeable vs eternal glory

 

   Anyone united with what is changeable either suffers all manner of reverses and loses what he has, such as riches, splendour and pleasure, or else he dies and brings upon himself the greatest change of all, departing naked and abandoning all the goods of this present life and his hopes for them... By contrast, for those who despise this world's goods and seek to learn about the world to come and hasten to do what serves to attain it, death does not inflict loss when it comes, but rather it conveys them away from what is vain and unstable to the day without evening, undying life, inexhaustible riches, unfading joy, eternal glory, and things that truly exist and remain forever unchanged

~ Saint Gregory Palamas

thanks to

http://theodorakis.net/orthodoxquotescomplete.html