P.D.D. (9/29/2011)- St. Clement of Alexandria on Reason

“Everything that is contrary to right reason is sin. Accordingly, therefore, the philosophers think fit to define the most generic passions thus: lust, as desire disobedient to reason; fear, as weakness disobedient to reason; pleasure, as an elation of the spirit disobedient to reason. If, then, disobedience in reference to reason is the generating cause of sin, how shall we escape the conclusion, that obedience to reason—the Word—which we call faith, will of necessity be the efficacious cause of duty? For virtue itself is a state of the soul rendered harmonious by reason in respect to the whole life. Nay, to crown all, philosophy itself is pronounced to be the cultivation of right reason; so that, necessarily, whatever is done through error of reason is transgression, and is rightly called, (ἁμάρτημα) sin. Since, then, the first man sinned and disobeyed God, it is said, “And man became like to the beasts: being rightly regarded as irrational, he is likened to the beasts. Whence Wisdom says: “The horse for covering; the libidinous and the adulturer is become like to an irrational beast. Wherefore also it is added: “He neighs, whoever may be sitting on him.” The man, it is meant, no longer speaks; for he who transgresses against reason is no longer rational, but an irrational animal, given up to lusts by which he is ridden (as a horse by his rider).”

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P.D.D. (9/28/2011)- St. Ignatius on the Cross

“The cross of Christ is indeed a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to the believing it is salvation and life eternal. “Where is the wise man? where the disputer? Where is the boasting of those who are called mighty? For the Son of God, who was begotten before time began,and established all things according to the will of the Father, He was conceived in the womb of Mary, according to the appointment of God, of the seed of David, and by the Holy Ghost. For says [the Scripture], “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and He shall be called Immanuel.”

-St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians

P.D.D. (9/27/2011)- St. Basil the Great on the Beginning

“Do not then imagine, O man! that the visible world is without a beginning; and because the celestial bodies move in a circular course, and it is difficult for our senses to define the point where the circle begins, do not believe that bodies impelled by a circular movement are, from their nature, without a beginning.  Without doubt the circle (I mean the plane figure described by a single line) is beyond our perception, and it is impossible for us to find out where it begins or where it ends; but we ought not on this account to believe it to be without a beginning.  Although we are not sensible of it, it really begins at some point where the draughtsman has begun to draw it at a certain radius from the centre.Thus seeing that figures which move in a circle always return upon themselves, without for a single instant interrupting the regularity of their course, do not vainly imagine to yourselves that the world has neither beginning nor end.  “For the fashion of this world passeth away” and “Heaven and earth shall pass away.”

-St. Basil the Great, Hexameron

P.D.D. (9/26/2011)- St. Athanasius

“His body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things, resting in the Father above. At one and the same time- this is the wonder – as man He was an human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the Father”

-St. Athanasius, from On the Incarnation

P.D.D. (9/20/2011)- Desert Fathers

“Abba Poemen also said this about Abba Isidore that whenever he addressed the brothers in church he said only one thing, ‘Forgive your brother, so that you also may be forgiven.'”

-Sayings of the Desert Fathers

P.D.D. (9/19/2011)- St. Cyril of Jerusalem

“‘And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.’ For we have many sins. For we offend both in word and in thought, and very many things we do worthy of condemnation; and ‘if we say that we have no sin’ (1 John 1.8), we lie, as John says. […] The offenses committed against us are slight and trivial, and easily settled; but those which we have committed against God are great, and need such mercy as is His only. Take heed, therefore, lest for the slight and trivial sins against you, you shut out for yourself forgiveness from God for your very grievous sins.”

– St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 23.16

P.D.D (9/16/2011)- Epistle of Barnabas on the Cross

“In like manner He points to the cross of Christ in another prophet, who saith,. “And when shall these things be accomplished? And the Lord saith, When a tree shall be bent down, and again arise, and when blood shall flow out of wood.” Here again you have an intimation concerning the cross, and Him who should be crucified. Yet again He speaks of this in Moses, when Israel was attacked by strangers. And that He might remind them, when assailed, that it was on account of their sins they were delivered to death, the Spirit speaks to the heart of Moses, that he should make a figure of the cross, and of Him about to suffer thereon; for unless they put their trust in Him, they shall be overcome for ever. Moses therefore placed one weapon above another in the midst of the hill, and standing upon it, so as to be higher than all the people, he stretched forth his hands, [Thus standing in the form of a cross.] and thus again Israel acquired the mastery. But when again he let down his hands, they were again destroyed. For what reason? That they might know that they could not be saved unless they put their trust in Him”

-Epistle of Barnabas

P.D.D. (9/15/2011)- St. Anthony the Great on the Cross

” …But concerning the Cross, which would you say to be the better, to bear it, when a plot is brought about by wicked men, nor to be in fear of death brought about under any form whatever; or to prate about the wanderings of Osiris and Isis, the plots of Typhon, the flight of Cronos, his eating his children and the slaughter of his father. For this is your wisdom. But how, if you mock the Cross, do you not marvel at the resurrection? For the same men who told us of the latter wrote the former, Or why when you make mention of the Cross are you silent about the dead who were raised, the blind who received their sight, the paralytics who were healed, the lepers who were cleansed, the walking upon the sea, and the rest of the signs and wonders, which show that Christ is no longer a man but God? To me you seem to do yourselves much injustice and not to have carefully read our Scriptures. But read and see that the deeds of Christ prove Him to be God come upon earth for the salvation of men…”

–Life of St. Anthony the Great by St. Athanasius

P.D.D. (9/8/2011)- Proto-Evangelion of St. James

“And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by [St. Anne], saying, ‘Anne! Anne! The Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive and shall bring forth, and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.’ And Anne said, ‘As the Lord my God lives, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God, and it shall minister to him in the holy things all the days of its life.’ . . . And [from the time she was three] Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there”

–Protoevangelium of James 4, 7

P.D.D. (9/7/2011)- St. Macarius the Great

 

This is the mark of Christianity–however much a man toils, and
however many righteousnesses he performs, to feel that he has done
nothing, and in fasting to say, “This is not fasting,” and in
praying, “This is not prayer,” and in perseverance at prayer, “I
have shown no perseverance; I am only just beginning to practice
and to take pains”; and even if he is righteous before God, he
should say, “I am not righteous, not I; I do not take pains, but
only make a beginning every day.”

-St. Macarius the Great

Taken from St. Balamand Monastery Webpage