"Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you."
-Revelation 3:2-3
-Revelation 3:2-3
End of (Ordinary) Time: Christ Draws Near
Evening Prayer: Saturday after Sunday Next before Advent, Wisdom 13, Revelation 3
Didache 15-16
Do all as you have in the Gospel
- Prayers: Our Father prayed corporately three times a day (Ch 8)
- Alms: Give freely for then you are blameless; the deceitful receiver will be judged strictly (Ch 1)
- Fasts: Corporately on Wednesday and Friday each week (Ch 8)
- Receive Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers as the Lord (Ch 11, 13)
- Reprove sinners in peace (Ch 15)
- "Beware, lest anyone lead you astray from this way of righteousness, for he teaches apart from God. For if you can bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you cannot, do as much as you can." (Ch 6)
- "Remember, Lord, your Church, and deliver it from all evil and to perfect it in Thy love." (Ch 10)
- "all your years of faith will count for nothing unless you are perfected in the last days." (Ch 16)
- *Perseverance necessary to salvation (Lk 18. "When the Son of man comes, will he find faith[fulness] on earth?")
- Syriac / Greek / Latin: word for faith includes faithfulness.
- Perfection seen in communal context: No one perfected alone.
- "Will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?" (Lk 18:7)
- Gathering frequently for common prayer, sacred sacrifice, & supplying alms, tithes, & offerings (Ch 13-14)
- Sacraments purify and perfect us in love through grace:
- The prophetic, apostolic bishops supply Christ's spirit-infused gifts (Ch 13, 15)
- Baptism: washing in water and Spirit unto renewed life (Ch 7)
- Eucharist: feasting on Christ's body as heavenly bread and blood as celestial wine (Ch 9-10, 14)
- Confirmation: increasing Spirit’s presence in Christians; commissioning them for service (Ch 7, 10)
- Confession: unburdening and renewing souls wracked with sin (Ch 14-15)
- Marriage: Spirit-bonded couples who protect each other's bodies and souls through chastity, fathering holy children (Ch 2,4-5; Mal 2; Heb. 13)
- Anointing sick: cleansing the body of illness and spirit of sin; preparing the body/temple for rest and reunion in the Last Day (Ch 10, 16)
- When did corruptors enter the Church?
- Hegesippus
- Nicene Gospel
- Hobart: love = fulfilling all of Christ's commands (Companion to the Altar)
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the grave dangers we are in through our many divisions. Deliver your Church from all enmity and prejudice, and everything that hinders us from godly union. As there is one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so make us all to be of one heart and of one mind, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and love, that with one voice we may give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God in everlasting glory. Amen.
Readings from the Fathers
Hegesippus, 2nd C. Christian Jew & Church Historian
Some of these heretics, forsooth, laid an information against Symeon the son of Clopas, as being of the family of David, and a Christian. And on these charges he suffered martyrdom when he was 120 years old, in the reign of Trajan Caesar, when Atticus was consular legate in Syria. And it so happened, says the same writer, that, while inquiry was then being made for those belonging to the royal tribe of the Jews, the accusers themselves were convicted of belonging to it. With show of reason could it be said that Symeon was one of those who actually saw and heard the Lord, on the ground of his great age, and also because the Scripture of the Gospels makes mention of Mary the daughter of Clopas, who, as our narrative has shown already, was his father.
The same historian mentions others also, of the family of one of the reputed brothers of the Saviour, named Judas, as having survived until this same reign, after the testimony they bore for the faith of Christ in the time of Domitian, as already recorded.
He writes as follows: They came, then, and took the presidency of every church, as witnesses for Christ, and as being of the kindred of the Lord. And, after profound peace had been established in every church, they remained down to the reign of Trojan Caesar: that is, until the time when he who was sprung from an uncle of the Lord, the aforementioned Symeon son of Clopas, was informed against by the various heresies, and subjected to an accusation like the rest, and for the same cause, before the legate Atticus; and, while suffering outrage during many days, he bore testimony for Christ: so that all, including the legate himself, were astonished above measure that a man 120 years old should have been able to endure such torments. He was finally condemned to be crucified.
... Up to that period the Church had remained like a virgin pure and uncorrupted: for, if there were any persons who were disposed to tamper with the wholesome rule of the preaching of salvation, they still lurked in some dark place of concealment or other. But, when the sacred band of apostles had in various ways closed their lives, and that generation of men to whom it had been vouchsafed to listen to the Godlike Wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then did the confederacy of godless error take its rise through the treachery of false teachers, who, seeing that none of the apostles any longer survived, at length attempted with bare and uplifted head to oppose the preaching of the truth by preaching "knowledge falsely so called."
And the church of the Corinthians continued in the orthodox faith up to the time when Primus was bishop in Corinth. I had some intercourse with these brethren on my voyage to Rome, when I spent several days with the Corinthians, during which we were mutually refreshed by the orthodox faith.
On my arrival at Rome, I drew up a list of the succession of bishops down to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. To Anicetus succeeded Soter, and after him came Eleutherus. But in the case of every succession, and in every city, the state of affairs is in accordance with the teaching of the Law and of the Prophets and of the Lord....
And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as had the Lord also and on the same account, again Symeon the son of Clopas, descended from the Lord's uncle, is made bishop, his election being promoted by all as being a kinsman of the Lord.
Therefore was the Church called a virgin, for she was not as yet corrupted by worthless teaching. Thebulis it was who, displeased because he was not made bishop, first began to corrupt her by stealth. He too was connected with the seven sects which existed among the people, like Simon, from whom come the Simoniani; and Cleobius, from whom come the Cleobiani; and Doritheus, from whom come the Dorithiani; and Gorthaeus, from whom come the Gortheani; Masbothaeus, from whom come the Masbothaei. From these men also come the Menandrianists, and the Marcionists, and the Carpocratians, and the Valentinians, and the Basilidians, and the Saturnilians. Each of these leaders in his own private and distinct capacity brought in his own private opinion. From these have come false Christs, false prophets, false apostles-men who have split up the one Church into parts through their corrupting doctrines, uttered in disparagement of God and of His Christ....
There were, moreover, various opinions in the matter of circumcision among the children of Israel, held by those who were opposed to the tribe of Judah and to Christ: such as the Essenes, the Galileans, the Hemerobaptists, the Masbothaei, the Samaritans, the Sadducees, the Pharisees.
Nicea (Anonymous Syriac History)
Of the resurrection of the dead: The Lord did not merely give his flesh over to suffering and death for us. His goal was to procure our salvation despite being free from death (as the explanation above has demonstrated). The Lord also predicts through the prophet the coming mystery of his incarnation in flesh: ‘I became like a helpless person, free among the dead’ [Ps. 88:4-5]. But who is free from death besides God? According to the passages cited above, he became flesh due to his love for mankind and became ‘like a helpless person,’ humbling his flesh ‘to the point of death, even death on a cross’ [Philip. 2:8]. It also proclaims that his flesh arose so that, by making us immortal, he might obtain for us forsaken humans hope for our own resurrection through our firstfruits. Thus we are no longer slaves to eternal death, but free like Christ, our firstfruits, as the blessed apostle Paul says: ‘Christ, the firstfruits, then, when he comes, those who belong to him’ [1 Cor. 15:23]. He also testifies that we expect this very Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, to come from heaven to raise our bodies from their graves: ‘Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body’ [Philip. 3:20-21]. Thus must the Lord glorify our bodies like his, no longer subject to wickedness nor any sufferings which presently exist, free from death and sin, and holy, so that we can live a new life with him in heavenly light, reigning forever with Christ himself. In this hope we have received holy baptism and receive saving communion with his holy members. This is the doctrine of the catholic church.
That there is one church of God: There is one church in heaven. The same church is also on earth. The Holy Spirit rests on it. The heresies outside of it, to which people adhere, are not the teachings of our Savior nor of the apostles but of Satan, their father the devil. They teach the heresies of Jews and Greeks in a different form to take away true life from people.
Hobart: Companion to the Altar
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