Reading from the Early Church Fathers is not alway easy, but it is rewarding. In them we get a sense of how the faith both developed and grew. They did not rely on campaigns, programs, or buildings to create "church". For them, the faith they defended and proclaimed was only recently handed down to them from the Apostles, and they felt the duty to declare it and defend it. This is the stuff of our heritage...our great, great, great, great...fathers of the church.
I know that as I read them I get a sense of how I fit into the overall church. I am a person who has a place...not insignificant, but also not alone. I am part of a long line of those who have declared and defended the faith, with only the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit to be the source that links me to the past fathers. It's good that we realize we are continuing something that has such a long legacy connected to it. Here's another person worth reading.
John of Damascus was born in 676. He was brought up in Damascus, Syria in a Christian family living under Muslim rule. His father was a government official under both the Byzantine emperor and the Muslim rulers of Damascus. John received a classical education. He was a brilliant young man studying law, theology, philosophy, and music. He was fluent in Arabic as well as Greek. He worked in the Muslim court until the hostility of the caliph toward Christianity caused him to resign his position, about the year 700. He moved to the vicinity of Jerusalem and became a monk at Mar Saba Monastery located in the Judaean desert hills near Bethlehem, 18 miles southeast of Jerusalem. He taught in the monastery, preached many sermons in Jerusalem, and wrote both theological treatises and hymns.
Since he lived in the midst of political and theological turmoil, John wrote a great deal to clarify true doctrine and to do his part in spreading the gospel. Among his writings is this profound prose:
What Happened on the Cross?
By the cross all these things have been set aright...
By nothing else except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ has death been brought low:
The sin of our first parent destroyed, hell plundered, resurrection bestowed, the power given us to despise the things of this world, even death itself, the road back to the former blessedness made smooth, the gates of paradise opened, our nature seated at the right hand of God, and we made children and heirs of God.
Good stuff to meditate on.
Peace
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