A prophet is despised only in his own country.
Brothers and Fathers, many people never stop sayingI have
heard them myself“If only we had lived in the days
of the apostles, and been counted worthy to gaze upon Christ
as they did, we should have become holy like them.”
Such
people do not realize that the Christ who spoke then and the
Christ who speaks now throughout the whole world is one and the
same.
If he were not the same then and now, God in every respect,
in his operations as in the sacraments, how would it be seen
that the Father is always in the Son and the Son in the Father,
according to the words Christ spoke through the Spirit: “My
Father is still working and so am I.”
But no doubt someone will say that merely to hear his words now and to be taught
about him and his kingdom is not the same thing as to have seen him then in the
body.
And I answer that indeed the position now is not the same as it was then,
but our situation now, in the present day, is very much better. It leads us more
easily to a deeper faith and conviction than seeing and hearing him in the flesh
would have done.
Then he appeared to the uncomprehending Jews as a man of lowly station: now he
is proclaimed to us as true God. Then in his body he associated with tax collectors
and sinners and ate with them: now he is seated at the right hand of God the
Father, and is never in any way separated from him.
We are firmly persuaded that
it is he who feeds the entire world, and we declareat least if we are believersthat
without him nothing came into being. Then even those of lowliest condition held
him in contempt. They said: “Is not this the son of Mary, and of Joseph the
carpenter?”
Now kings and rulers worship him as Son of the true God, and himself
true God, and he has glorified and continues to glorify those who worship him
in spirit and in truth, although he often punishes them when they sin. He transforms
them, more than all the nations under heaven, from clay into iron.
Then he was
thought to be mortal and corruptible like the rest of humankind. He was no different
in appearance from other men. The formless and invisible God, without change
or alteration, assumed a human form and showed himself to be a normal human being.
He ate, he drank, he slept, he sweated, and he grew weary. He did everything
other people do, except that he did not sin.
For anyone to recognize him in that
human body, and to believe that he was the God who made heaven and earth and
everything in them was very exceptional.
This is why when Peter said: “You are the Son of the living God,” the master
called him blessed, saying: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and
blood has not revealed this to you”you do not speak of something your
eyes have seen“but my Father who is in heaven.”
It is certain therefore that anyone who now hears Christ cry out daily through
the holy Gospels, and proclaim the will of his blessed Father, but does not obey
him with fear and trembling and keep his commandmentsit is certain that
such a person would have refused to believe in him then, if he had been present,
and seen him, and heard him teach.
Indeed there is reason to fear that in his
total incredulity he would have blasphemed by regarding Christ not as true God,
but as an enemy of God.
(Catechesis
III, 19: SC 113, 165-69)
Symeon
the New Theologian (949-1022) was born in Galata in
Paphlagonia, and educated in Constantinople, where in 977
he entered the famous monastery of Studios. Soon afterward
he transferred to the nearby monastery of Saint Mamas,
was ordained priest in 980, and about three years later
became abbot.
During his twenty-five years of office he
instilled a new fervor into his community, but opposition
to his teaching forced him to resign in 1005 and in 1009
he was exiled to Palonkiton on the other side of the Bosphorus.
He turned the mined oratory of Saint Marina into another
monastery, and although he was soon pardoned, chose to
remain there until his death rather than compromise his
teaching.
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