The Spirit of Early Christian Thought Quotes

“The agenda of this book is set by the things Christians cared most about.”
― Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Patience outfits faith, guides peace, assists love, equips humility, waits for penitence, seals confession, keeps the flesh in check, preserves the spirit, bridles the tongue, restrains the hands, tramples temptation underfoot, removes what causes us to stumble, brings martyrdom to perfection; it lightens the care of the poor, teaches moderation to the rich, lifts the burdens of the sick, delights the believer, welcomes the unbeliever, commends the servant to his master and his master to God, adorns women and gives grace to men; patience is loved in children, praised in youth, admired in the elderly. It is beautiful in either sex and at every age of life.... Her countenance is tranquil and peaceful, her brow serene.... Patience sits on the throne of the most gentle and peaceful Spirit.... For where God is there is his progeny, patience. When God's Spirit descends patience is always at his side.3o”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Augustine wrote, "No one believes anything unless one first thought it believable.... Everything that is believed is believed after being preceded by thought.... Not everyone who thinks
believes, since many think in order not to believe; but everyone who believes thinks, thinks in believing and believes in thinking.”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“As you came near the spring you would marvel, seeing that the water was endless, as it constantly gushed up and poured forth. Yet you could never say that you had seen all the water. How could you see what was still hidden in the bosom of the earth? Hence no matter how long you might stay at the spring, you would always be beginning to see the water.... It is the same with one who fixes his gaze on the infinite beauty of God. It is constantly being discovered anew, and it is always seen as something new and strange in comparison with what the mind has already understood. And as God continues to reveal himself, man continues to wonder; and he never exhausts his desire to see more, since what he is waiting for is always more magnificent, more divine, than all that he has already seen.'8”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Whoever thinks that in this mortal life a person may so disperse the mists of bodily and carnal imaginings as to possess the unclouded light of changeless truth, and to cleave to it with the unswerving constancy of a spirit wholly estranged from the common ways of life-such a person understands neither what he seeks, nor who he is who seeks it."32”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Like other Christian thinkers, Augustine believed that happiness was found in likeness to God, and, like Gregory of Nyssa, he knew that likeness to God did not mean becoming divine but cleaving to God and living in fellowship with God. As we draw near to God we are filled with his life and light and holiness.”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Virtue can never be simply a matter of spiritual athleticism. It is possessed in Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Christian life is trinitarian, oriented toward God the supreme good, formed by the life of Christ, and moved toward the good by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Again Gregory goes right to the heart of the matter. In his little essay on the Holy Spirit he says that only the Spirit has the power to bestow the good, by which he means moral good. For whatever is good comes from God through the Son and is perfected by the Holy Spirit. How can one "cleave to
God," he asks, unless the Holy Spirit works in us?”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Gregory was puzzled by the wording of the eighth beatitude, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:io). How could persecution be a good? Happiness, according to Aristotle, requires "the gifts of fortune." Gregory answers that this is why the beatitude reads not simply, "Happy are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice," but adds the phrase "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." If one is to be happy, one must possess the good. There must be an end beyond being persecuted (which itself is not a good). Hence Gregory asks, "What is it that we will obtain? What is the prize? What is the crown? It seems to me that for which we hope is nothing other than the Lord himself. For He himself is the judge of those who contend, and the crown of those who win. He is the one who distributes the inheritance, he himself is the good inheritance. He is the good portion and the giver of the portion, he is the one who makes rich and is himself the riches. He shows you the treasure and is himself your treasure. . . . According to his promise those who have been persecuted for his sake shall be happy, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Happiness is possessing Christ. The beatitudes are not simply moral maxims, but invitations by Christ to his disciples "to ascend with him" that they might enjoy "fellowship with the God of all creation."24”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“For Clement's contemporaries "likeness to God" meant practicing the virtues. Christian writers agreed. Yet they were uncomfortable speaking about the virtues without invoking Christ and the Holy Spirit as the guide to perfection.20”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“In describing the moral life in terms of its goal, that is, teleologically, Gregory shows himself very much the Greek philosopher. But Christian ethics was also formed by a distinctively theological understanding derived from Scriptures. The saying from the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48), presents the moral life as oriented not to the "supreme good" but to God. God is the highest good, "the source of our bliss ... and the goal of our striving," as Augustine said, and it is only in communion with God that human lives are brought to fulfillment.”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Imitation, the virtues, interior disposition, character, likeness to God-here was the soil in which early Christian ethics took root.”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Virtue required a conversion of the affections.”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“From the time Gregory came to study with him Origen urged him to "adopt a philosophical life." He said that "only those who practice a life genuinely befitting reasonable creatures and seek to live virtuously, who seek to know first who they are, and to strive for those things that are truly good and to shun those which are truly evil ... are lovers of philosophy."8”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Hilary's book on the Trinity is thus an exercise in trying to understand the nature of God who is known in Christ. It is through the flesh of Christ that the soul is able to draw near to
God and know the "divine mysteries."" The one God can be known through the things of creation, but it is only through the economy that one knows God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“The only way to stand before God, however, is in humble
adoration. If we are to discuss the "things of God," writes Hilary, we must learn obedience and serve God with devotion and reverence. Only by yielding to God and giving ourselves to the object of our search can we know the God we seek. The careful reader of a book, says Hilary, realizes that he will not understand what is written in it if he does not expect more from the book than he brings to it. If he approaches the book only as a critic he will never allow his thoughts to be shaped by what is found there. Applied to theology, that is, thinking about God, this axiom means that we must allow the reality of God to stretch our thoughts so that they become worthy of the God we seek, befitting God, rather than limit God by imposing on him arbitrary standards of our own making. This is why, says Hilary, "God can only be known in devotion." The form of knowledge that is appropriate to God, he writes, is "thinking with understanding formed by piety," approaching God with a devout mind. Theology requires the "warmth of faith."9”
― Robert L. Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Religion, however, is not a deduction from what one knows. If one begins with proofs and resolves to hold only what can be proven, one will never have done with beginning.”
― Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Although Christian thinking on the body is formed by the account in Genesis, of equal if not greater importance is belief in the resurrection of the body. In the form of the "Nicene" creed adopted at the Council of Constantinople, the final clauses read, "We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." Christian thinking about human beings
oscillates between the beginning and the end, origin and goal. The hope of resurrection led inevitably to the question of whether the body was part of the definition of the self. The bodily resurrection of Jesus was, of course, a matter of biblical history, but it took time for Christian thinkers to draw out the full implications of the Resurrection for Christian anthropology.”
― Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“In modern times there has been something of a consensus among biblical scholars that words have only one meaning and that the task of biblical interpretation is to discover the original meaning of the words of the Bible. The church fathers, however, took it as self-evident that the words of the Bible often had multiple meanings and the plain sense did not exhaust their meaning. "No Christian," said Augustine in the first paragraph of his Literal Commentary on Genesis, "would dare say that the [words of the Scripture] are not to be taken figuratively.”
― Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“In response Origen makes the extraordinary statement that the knowledge of God begins not with the ascent of the mind, but with God's descent to human beings in a historical person: "I”
― Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“In Augustine's view, "It is life outside the Christian community which fails to be truly public, authentically political. The opposition is not between public and private, church and world, but between political virtue and political vice. At the end of the day, it is the secular order that will be shown to be `atomistic' in its foundations."" A society that has no place for God will disintegrate into an amoral aggregate of competing, self-aggrandizing interests that are destructive of the commonweal. In the end it will be enveloped in darkness.”
― Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God