Gregory of Nyssa: Our Sister Macrina
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Monasticism, Patristic Pearls, The Cappadocians, Women in Early Christianity on March 7, 2025
Excerpt from Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters, by Ann M. Silvas, Brill, 2007
Gregory of Nyssa – Letter 19 To a certain John
The letter was written from Sebasteia in the first half of AD 380. The brief but intense cameo of Gregory’s sister, 19.6–10, is a foreshadowing and a promise of the Life of Macrina. It is the earliest documentation we have of Macrina’s existence, her way of life and her funeral led by Gregory, written less than a year after her death. The witness of her lifestyle, her conversations with him which were so formative and strengthening of his religious spirit, and above all his providential participation in her dying hours had a profound affect on him. It only needed time to absorb and reflect on these events. Then, when the occasion offered, he set out to make his remarkable sister better known to the world.
Our Sister Macrina
We had a sister who was for us a teacher of how to live, a mother in place of our mother. Such was her freedom towards God that she was for us a strong tower (Ps 60.4) and a shield of favour (Ps 5.13) as the Scripture says, and a fortified city (Ps 30.22, 59.11) and a name of utter assurance, through her freedom towards God that came of her way of life.
She dwelt in a remote part of Pontus, having exiled herself from the life of human beings. Gathered around her was a great choir of virgins whom she had brought forth by her spiritual labour pains (cf. 1 Cor 4.15, Gal 4.19) and guided towards perfection through her consummate care, while she herself imitated the life of angels in a human body.
With her there was no distinction between night and day. Rather, the night showed itself active with the deeds of light (cf. Rom 12.12–13, Eph 5.8) and day imitated the tranquility of night through serenity of life. The psalmodies resounded in her house at all times night and day.
You would have seen a reality incredible even to the eyes: the flesh not seeking its own, the stomach, just as we expect in the Resurrection, having finished with its own impulses, streams of tears poured out (cf. Jer. 9.1, Ps 79.6) to the measure of a cup, the mouth meditating the law at all times (Ps 1.2, 118.70), the ear attentive to divine things, the hand ever active with the commandments (cf. Ps 118.48). How indeed could one bring before the eyes a reality that transcends description in words?
Well then, after I left your region, I had halted among the Cappadocians, when unexpectedly I received some disturbing news of her. There was a ten days’ journey between us, so I covered the whole distance as quickly as possible and at last reached Pontus where I saw her and she saw me.
But it was the same as a traveler at noon whose body is exhausted from the sun. He runs up to a spring, but alas, before he has touched the water, before he has cooled his tongue, all at once the stream dries up before his eyes and he finds the water turned to dust.
So it was with me. At the tenth year I saw her whom I so longed to see, who was for me in place of a mother and a teacher and every good, but before I could satisfy my longing, on the third day I buried her and returned on my way.
“Daily” Bread in the Lord’s Prayer? A Word Study
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, Theology on January 9, 2025
Sources:
1. http://aramaicnt.org/articles/the-lords-prayer-in-galilean-aramaic/
2. Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – c. 254): On Prayer (Περί Ευχής), Chapter XVII
The Lord’s Prayer is with little debate the most significant prayer in Christianity. Although many theological and ideological differences may divide Christians across the world, it is a prayer that unites the faith as a whole.
Within the New Testament tradition, the Prayer appears in two places. The first and more elaborate version is found in Matthew 6:9-13 where a simpler form is found in Luke 11:2-4, and the two of them share a significant amount of overlap.
The prayer’s absence from the Gospel of Mark, taken together with its presence in both Luke and Matthew, has brought some modern scholars to conclude that it is a tradition from the hypothetical “Q” source (from German: Quelle, meaning “source”) which both Luke and Matthew relied upon in many places throughout their individual writings. Given the similarities and unique character of the Matthaean and Lukan versions of the Lord’s Prayer may be evidence that what we attribute to the Greek of “Q” may ultimately trace back to an Aramaic source.
One of the trickiest problems of translating the Lord’s Prayer into Aramaic is finding out what επιούσιος (epiousios), usually translated as “daily”, originally intended. It is a unique word in Greek, only appearing twice in the all of Greek literature: Once in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, and the other time in the Lord’s Prayer in Luke.
This raises some curious questions that have baffled scholars. Why would Jesus have used a singular, entirely unique word? In more recent times, the bafflement has turned to a different possible solution. Jesus, someone known to have spoken Aramaic in a prayer that was originally recited in Aramaic, would not have used the Greek επιούσιος, at all. So, the question has evolved to “What Aramaic word was επιούσιος supposed to represent?” It would have to be something unique or difficult enough that whoever translated it into Greek needed to coin a word to express or preserve some meaning that they thought was important, or something that they couldn’t quite wrap the Greek language around.
The first question to answer is the meaning of the unique koine Greek word ἐπιούσιον (epiousion). To do this, we consult the writings of Origen of Alexandria. Origen was a third century native koine Greek speaker, head of the famed Catechetical School of Alexandria, the greatest theologian of the early church, and first to perform an exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer (ca. AD 240).
Origen begins: ”Let us now consider what the word epiousion, needful, means. First of all it should be known that the word epiousion is not found in any Greek writer whether in philosophy or in common usage, but seems to have been formed by the evangelists. At least Matthew and Luke, in having given it to the world, concur in using it in identical form.”
Origen concludes his in-depth discussion of epiousion, needful, by stating, “Needful, therefore, is the bread which corresponds most closely to our rational nature and is akin to our very essence, which invests the soul at once with well being and with strength, and, since the Word of God is immortal, imparts to its eater its own immortality.”
In Aramaic, the best fit for επιούσιος is probably the word çorak. It comes from the root çrk, which means to be poor, to need, or to be necessary. It is a very common word in Galilean Aramaic that is used in a number of senses to express both need and thresholds of necessity, such as “as much as is required” (without further prepositions) or with pronominal suffixes “all that [pron.] needs” (çorki = “All that I need”; çorkak = “All that you need”; etc.). Given this multi-faceted nature of the word, it’s hard to find a one-to-one Greek word that would do the job, and επιούσιος is a very snug fit in the context of the Prayer’s petition. This might even give us a hint that the Greek translator literally read into it a bit.
The Aramaic word yelip is another possible solution. It is interesting to note that it comes from the root yalap or “to learn.” Etymologically speaking, learning is a matter of repetition and routine, and this connection may play off the idea of regular physical bread, but actually mean “daily learning from God” (i.e. that which is necessary for living, as one cannot live off of bread alone).
Bottom line:
Origen’s understanding of epiousion in his context of needful certainly has no connection or relationship to a simplistic English translation of epiousion as “daily’. Nor is the translation of epiousion as “daily” supported by either hypothetical original Aramaic word çorkak or yelip.
In fact, a translation of epiousion as “daily” makes this petition in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:11) directly contradict Jesus’ lengthy admonition 14 verses later, starting at Matt 6:25:
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 “For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
The Gospel writers of Matthew and Luke both used the same totally unique Greek word solely in the context of the Lord’s Prayer. There were other frequently used koine Greek words available to express the simple idea of “daily”. Perhaps the unique use of epiousion was not accidental or coincidental, but needed to express the intent of the original Aramaic prayer. Origen may provide the best insight into the intended meaning of ἐπιούσιον as needful of the supra-essential Word of God.
“And we believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Monasticism on December 28, 2024
In the original koine Greek of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of AD 381, the subject line reads: Εἰς μίαν, Ἁγίαν, Καθολικὴν καὶ Ἀποστολικὴν Ἐκκλησίαν.
I find it sadly ironic that The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, as it is recited in most worship services today, uses the first person singular (“I believe…”/”Πιστεύω”) rather than the first person plural (“We believe…”/”Πιστεύομεν”) as it was enacted at the first and second ecumenical councils (Nicaea AD 325 and Constantinople AD 381) of the undivided Church. In this self-centered, affluent, secularized, and fragmented Western world, I guess the shift from a collective “we” to an individual “I” should come as no surprise.
Christianity became the State Religion of the Roman Empire in AD 380. Since becoming that key religious institution in the social and political infrastructure of worldly power, very little has changed to this day, regardless of the form or character of the Church’s earthbound imperial partners. Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, calls it the Church’s 1,700 year addiction to Power, Prestige, and Possessions.
Let’s analyze our subject line from the Creed: “And we believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”
The institutional Christian Church was no longer “One” after 451 AD; increasingly less “Holy” after 313 AD; no longer “Catholic” after 1054 (worse after 1517); and “Apostolic” only in origin (and Rome’s claim to Peter and Constantinople’s claim to Andrew are tenuous, at best.). So, nothing in this line from the Creed has been objectively true in more than 1,000 years. Reciting this line from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed now is not so much a proclamation of faith, as a largely an unsupportable exercise in wishful thinking. Don’t believe it? “Google” the dated Church events and read for yourself.
Until the issues raised in the preceding paragraphs are meaningfully addressed (read: confession and repentance) by the legacy institutional Church, I think it will continue to shrink in numbers, authority, influence, and credibility. I believe the Ecclesia (Ἐκκλησία) of scripture will endure and eventually prevail; the institutional imperial Church, not so much. And Ecclesia and Church are not the same thing, in spite of institutional protests to the contrary.
In the meantime, solitary Christian hermits patiently remain in silent prayer within their virtual deserts.
von Balthasar on Gregory of Nyssa
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Concept of "Person" (series), Ekklesia and church, Essence and Energies (series), Patristic Pearls, The "Nous" (series), The Cappadocians, The Holy Trinity on December 26, 2024
Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) – Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and Catholic priest who is considered one of the most important Catholic theologians of the 20th century. Over the course of his life, he authored 85 books, over 500 articles and essays, and almost 100 translations.
Excerpt from Hans Urs von Balthasar: Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa (1988)
“Less brilliant and prolific than his great master Origen, less cultivated than his friend Gregory Nazianzen, less practical than his brother Basil, he [Gregory of Nyssa] nonetheless outstrips them all in the profundity of his thought, for he knew better than anyone how to transpose ideas inwardly from the spiritual heritage of ancient Greece into a Christian mode.”
Prayer Ropes and Rosaries
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Monasticism, New Nuggets, Patristic Pearls on December 21, 2024
Both the prayer rope and the rosary are revered traditional aids to Christian prayer, yet each has its own unique origin, symbolism, and devotional use.
The Prayer Rope, now largely associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church, is a loop of knots (each knot containing seven crosses), usually made of wool, that is used to focus and intensify prayer, particularly the Jesus Prayer. It acts as a physical guide for a repeated, meditative style of prayer, allowing practitioners to keep count while reflecting and meditating. The prayer rope has its beginnings in early fourth century Christian monasticism in the Egyptian Desert, where it was devised as a tool to aid in the ascetic practice of continuous prayer (1 Thes. 5:17).
Origins: The prayer rope is known as a ‘komboskini’ in Greek and ‘chotki’ in Russian. The prayer rope owes its origins to St. Pachomius the Great, a fourth century “Desert Father” in upper Egypt and founder of cenobitic monasticism (a monastic tradition that stresses community life, over the older, eremitic, or solitary tradition). St. Pachomius established the prayer rope as a practical solution for the monks under his supervision to count prayers and prostrations consistently. The prayer rope evolved as a useful instrument for monks to keep track of their prayers, particularly the Jesus Prayer, without distraction. It gradually took on a deeper spiritual value, with each knot symbolizing a request for mercy and humility.
Symbolic Significance: Wool knots, each knot containing seven crosses, are commonly used on traditional prayer ropes to represent Christ’s flock and the shepherd’s care. The number of knots in a prayer rope varies; typically 33 (Christ’s age at crucifixion), 50, or 100.
Traditional Use: In Orthodox Christian practice, the prayer rope is typically used for private prayer in reciting the Jesus Prayer, acting as a physical and spiritual guide to help the mind (nous) and heart concentrate on prayer.
The Rosary, strongly associated with the Roman Catholic Church, is a string of beads that ends with a crucifix and is used to guide Catholics through a sequence of prayers that reflect on the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Each bead signifies a specific prayer, such as the Hail Mary, and each set of beads makes a ‘decade’ that corresponds to a mystery in Christ’s life. The rosary has a long history, dating back to the Middle Ages when it first arose as a popular form of laity devotion, eventually becoming a prominent practice in Catholic piety.
Origins: The rosary is typically identified with Saint Dominic in the early 13th century. The rosary began as a simple way for lay people to join in the monastic practice of reciting the Psalms, but has since evolved into a systematic form of prayer. The rosary prayers are split into decades, each with ten Hail Marys, an Our Father, and a Glory Be, and are frequently accompanied by meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosary.
Symbolic Significance: Each rosary bead represents a prayer as well as a step in the meditation journey through Jesus Christ’s and the Virgin Mary’s lives. The rosary culminates with a crucifix, which represents Christ’s sacrifice.
Traditional Use: Roman Catholics utilize the rosary for both personal meditation and social worship. It is frequently prayed privately for personal spiritual development or in groups for social objectives and celebrations.
Thomas Aquinas: “… all that I have written seems to me as so much straw”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Theology on December 10, 2024
Thomas Aquinas OP (c. 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, the foremost Scholastic thinker, as well one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the Western tradition. Thomas’s best-known work is the unfinished Summa Theologica, or Summa Theologiae (1265–1274). As a Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas is considered one of the Roman Catholic Church’s greatest theologians and philosophers.
On December 6th, 1273, while Thomas Aquinas was celebrating Holy Communion during the Feast of Saint Nicholas, he received a revelation that so affected him he called his principal work, the Summa Theologica, nothing more than “straw” and left it unfinished.
Aquinas described his Divine Experience: “The most perfect union with God is the most perfect human happiness and the goal of the whole of the human life, a gift that must be given to us by God.”
When his friend and secretary tried to encourage Aquinas to write more, he replied:
“I can do no more. The end of my labors has come. Such things have been revealed to me that all that I have written seems to me as so much straw. Now I await the end of my life after that of my works.”
Aquinas would die just three short months later. The Great Doctor finally got it right, I think. Experience (theoria) trumps reason.
Rohr: Power, Prestige, and Possessions; Major Obstacles to the Reign of God
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on November 28, 2024
Fr. Richard Rohr – is a Franciscan priest, Christian mystic, and teacher of Ancient Christian Contemplative Prayer. He is the founding Director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, NM.
In Jesus’s consistent teaching and in Mary’s great Magnificat, both say that there are three major obstacles to the coming of the reign of God. I call them the three P’s: power, prestige and possessions. Mary refers to them as “the proud,” “the mighty on thrones” and “the rich.” These, she says, God is “routing,” “pulling down” and “sending away empty.” (This great prayer of Mary was considered so subversive by the Argentine government that they banned it from public recitation at protest marches!) We can easily take nine-tenths of Jesus’s teachings and very clearly align it under one of those three categories: Our attachments to power, prestige and possessions are obstacles to God’s coming. Why could we not see that?
—from the book Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent
by Richard Rohr
Origen: On Prayer; ca. AD 240
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts on November 26, 2024
Origen of Alexandria, (c. 184 – c. 254) was Head of the famed Catechetical School in Alexandria at age 18 and arguably the most brilliant theologian of the early Christian church. His book, First Principles (Περὶ Ἀρχῶν; Peri Archon), was the first systematic exposition of Christian theology. He was probably the most able and successful defender of the faith against the heresy of Gnosticism in the third century. A Saint and Church Father without question. The following excerpts come from Origen’s book, On Prayer (Περί Ευχής; Peri Euches), written in about AD 240. Note that these excerpts primarily address active prayer.
When to Pray
Without ceasing:
“… keep that saying of Paul’s in accordance with the exhortations of Jesus, “Pray without ceasing.”
Now, since the performance of actions enjoined by virtue or by the commandments is also a constituent part of prayer, he prays without ceasing who combines prayer with right actions, and becoming actions with prayer. For the saying “pray without ceasing” can only be accepted by us as a possibility if we may speak of the whole life of a saint as one great continuous prayer.”
Specific Times for Prayer
Four set times a day – 3rd Hour, 6th Hour, 9th Hour plus Prayer at Night (about midnight):
“Of such prayer what is usually termed prayer is indeed a part, and ought to be performed at least three times each day, as is plain from the account of Daniel who, in spite of the grave danger that impended, prayed three times daily.”
Indeed we shall not rightly speak even the season of night without such prayer as David refers to when he says ‘at midnight I arose to make acknowledgment to you for your righteous judgments’ and as Paul exemplifies when, as it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, along with Silas he offers prayer and praise to God ‘about midnight’ in Phillipi so that the prisoners also heard them.”
Moods of Prayer
Its Four Moods:
“In the first Epistle to Timothy the Apostle has employed four terms corresponding to four things in close relation to the subject of devotion and prayer… He says, ‘I exhort therefore first of all that requests, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men,’ and so on.”
Personal Prayer
Place, Preparation, and Posture
“But to secure the performance of one’s prayers in peace without distraction, the rule is for every man to make choice, if possible, of what I may term the most solemn spot in his house before he prays, considering in addition to his general examination of it, whether any violation of law or right has not been done in the place in which he is praying, so as to have made not only himself but also the place of his personal prayer of such a nature that the regard of God has fled from it.
A few words may now be added in reference to the direction in which one ought to look in prayer. Of the four directions, the North, South, East, and West, who would not at once admit that the East clearly indicates the duty of praying with the face turned towards it with the symbolic suggestion that the soul is looking upon the dawn of the true light?
Accordingly it seems to me that one who is about to enter upon prayer ought first to have paused awhile and prepared himself to engage in prayer throughout more earnestly and intently, to have cast aside every distraction and confusion of thought, to have bethought him to the best of his ability of the greatness of Him whom he is approaching and of the impiety of approaching Him frivolously and carelessly and, as it were, in contempt, and to have put away everything alien. He ought thus to enter upon prayer with his soul, as it were, extended before his hands, and his mind intent on God before his eyes, and his intellect raised from earth and set toward the Lord of All before his body stands. Let him put away all resentment against any real or imagined injurer in proportion to his desire for God not to bear resentment against himself in turn for his injuries and sins against many of his neighbors or any wrong deeds whatsoever upon his conscience. Of all the innumerable dispositions of the body that, accompanied by outstretching of the hands and upraising of the eyes, standing is preferred—inasmuch as one thereby wears in the body also the image of the devotional characteristics that become the soul.”
Topics of Prayer
Glory to God, Thanksgiving, Confession, Supplication, Glory to God
“I have still to treat the topics of prayer, and therewith I purpose to bring this treatise to an end. Four topics which I have found scattered throughout the Scriptures appear to me to deserve mention, and according to these everyone should organize their prayer. The topics are as follows: In the beginning and opening of prayer, glory is to be ascribed according to one’s ability to God, through Christ who is to be glorified with Him, and in the Holy Spirit who is to be proclaimed with Him. Thereafter, one should put thanksgivings: common thanksgivings—into which he introduces benefits conferred upon men in general—and thanksgivings for things which he has personally received from God. After thanksgiving it appears to me that one ought to become a powerful accuser of one’s own sins before God and ask first for healing with a view to being released from the habit which brings on sin, and secondly for forgiveness for past actions. After confession it appears to me that one ought to append as a fourth element the asking for the great and heavenly things, both personal and general, on behalf of one’s nearest and dearest. And last of all, one should bring prayer to an end ascribing glory to God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.“
Macarius the Great: The Pagan Skull
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Heaven and Hell, Universal Restoration (Apokatastasis) on November 25, 2024
Macarius of Egypt (c. 300 – 391) was a Christian monk and Grazer hermit (Greek: βοσκοί, romanized: boskoí) who nourished themselves only with raw plants, often on all fours, and living in a wild manner, “among the beasts. He is also known as Macarius the Elder or Macarius the Great (not to be confused with Macarius of Alexandria).
“Abba Macarius said, ‘Walking in the desert one day, I found the skull of a dead man, lying on the ground. As I was moving it with my stick, the skull spoke to me. I said to it, “Who are you?” The skull replied, “I was high priest of the idols and of the pagans who dwelt in this place; but you are Macarius, the Spirit-bearer. Whenever you take pity on those who are in torments, and pray for them, they feel a little respite.” The old man said to him, “What is this alleviation, and what is this torment?” He said to him, “As far as the sky is removed from the earth, so great is the fire beneath us; we are ourselves standing in the midst of the fire, from the feet up to the head. It is not possible to see anyone face to face, but the face of one is fixed to the back of another. Yet when you pray for us, each of us can see the other’s face a little. Such is our respite.” The old man in tears said, “Alas the day when that man was born!” He said to the skull, “Are there punishments which are more painful than this?” The skull said to him, “There is a more grievous punishment down below us.” The old man said, “Who are the people down there?” The skull said to him: “We have received a little mercy since we did not know God, but those who know God and denied Him are down below us.” Then, picking up the skull, the old man buried it.”
(The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, The Alphabetical Collection: Macarius the Great, 38.)
The “Icon Corner”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Contemplative Prayer (series), Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Monasticism on November 21, 2024
The Book of Acts and the Epistles of the Apostle Paul record that in the early Church, Christians used to meet in the homes of the faithful. This tradition of the House church assembly continues to this day in Eastern Christianity. An Orthodox Christian is expected to pray constantly. Thus the house, just like the Temple (church building), is considered to be a consecrated place. The center of worship in the house is the icon corner (Greek: εικονοστάσι, iconostási).
An icon corner is normally oriented to face east. It is often located in a corner to eliminate worldly distractions and allow prayer to be more concentrated. Here is where the family’s icons were located and displayed. From the earliest days, Light has been an important part of Christian worship. It not only provides a beautiful and calming ambience; it takes on a theological significance with Christ as the Light of the World. Thus, oil lamps and candles frequently illuminate the icons in the icon corner.
In the theology of Orthodox iconography, the prayers and veneration directed to the icons are passed on to the prototype—the person depicted in the image. For, as St. John of Damascus wrote, “we do not worship paint or wood, we do not worship matter; we worship the God who created matter, who became matter (flesh) for our sake“.
The icons in the icon corner also remind us of the declaration in Hebrews 12:1, that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses“; so we need never pray alone. We venerate these witnesses through their icons, petition them and join them in prayer and worship of our Triune God.
First Thoughts 