G. K. Chesterton – On those who criticize Christianity too harshly

“Methinks you do protest too much”, said Hamlet.
The harhsness with which some people criticize Christianity is revealing. G. K. Chesterton puts it very well in introduction to The Everlasting Man.
The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. [...]

On Philo’s Allegorical Exigesis of Genesis

On Philo’s Allegorical Exigesis of Genesis
While this shorter explanation in a catechetical form [Questions and Answers on Genesis] was intended for more extensive circles, Philo’s special and chief scientific work is his large allegorical commentary on Genesis [Allegorical Interpretation I-III]…
These two works frequently approximate each other as to their contents. For in the Quaestiones et [...]

Philo – Waters of Life (1)

Philo – Waters of Life (1)
Philo of Alexandria (Philo Judaeus; c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD)
Allegorical Interpretation 1.11.28
XI. (28) But a fountain went up upon the earth, and watered all the face of the earth.  [Genesis 2:6; LXX]
He here calls the mind the fountain of the earth, and the sensations he calls the face [...]

Philo – Tree of Life (3)

Philo – Tree of Life (3)
Philo of Alexandria (Philo Judaeus; c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD)
Allegorical Interpretation 1.17.56-1.18.62
XVII. (56) And God caused to rise out of the earth every tree which is pleasant to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life he raised in the middle of the Paradise, and [...]

Philo – Tree of Life (2)

Philo – Tree of Life (2)

Philo of Alexandria (Philo Judaeus; c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD)

On The Migration Of Abraham 8.36-42
VIII. (36) That then which is shown is that thing so worthy of being beheld, so worthy of being contemplated, so worthy of being beloved, the perfect good, the nature of which is to [...]

Philo – Tree of Life (1)

Philo – Tree of Life (1)

Philo of Alexandria (Philo Judaeus; c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD)
Questions and Answers on Genesis 1.10
Question: What is meant by the tree of life, and why it was placed in the middle of the Paradise? (Genesis 2:9).
Some people have believed that, if there were really plants of a corporeal [...]

Know Thyself: St Hippolytus

The treatise of St Hippolytus On the Refutation of All Heresies
The saying Know yourself means therefore that we should recognise and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in his own image..
via Universalis: Office of Readings.

Mozarabic Prayer

Ancient Mozarabic prayer (before 700 AD)
Hear us, O never-failing Light,
Lord our God, our only Light, the Fountain of Light,
the Light of your angels, thrones, dominions,
principalities, powers, and of all the beings of this world;
you have created the light of your saints,
the bright cloud of witnesses around us.
May our souls be your lamps, kindled and illumined [...]

St Columbanus

Reading From the Rule of St Columbanus
Perpetual light in the temple of the eternal High Priest
How happy, how lucky are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes! How blessed it is to be wakeful and watching for God, who created all things, who fills them with being and exceeds all of [...]