Fire is one of the four elements. It is light and more buoyant than the others, and it both burns and gives light. It was made by the Creator on the first day, for sacred Scripture says, "And God said: Be light made. And light was made." According to what some say, fire is the same thing as light.… And into the luminaries of the firmament the Creator put…

Pharisee is a name meaning "those who are set apart." They followed a way of life which they regarded as most perfect. They esteemed their way as superior to others. They affirmed the resurrection of the dead, the existence of angels, and holiness of life. They followed a rigorous way of life, practicing asceticism and sexual abstinence for periods of…

The soul when it was deified descended into Hades, in order that, just as the Sun of Righteousness [Malachi 4:2] rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He might bring light to those who sit under the earth in darkness and shadow of death [Isaiah 9:2]: in order that just as He brought the message of peace to those upon the earth, and of release to the…

He refers to the evil deeds, to the distorted free choice.

If, he says, I was trying to deceive you in saying these things, am I perhaps able to distort God's thought, who knows the secrets of one's mind, and whom I take every care to please in all things?

The fact that God exists is not doubted by those who accept the sacred Scriptures—both the Old and New Testaments, I mean—or by the majority of the Greeks, for, as we have said, the knowledge of God's existence has been revealed to us through nature. However, since the wickedness of the evil one has so prevailed over people's nature as even to drag some…

He is said to have progressed in wisdom and age and grace, because he did increase in age and by this increase in age brought more into evidence the wisdom inherent in him further. By making what is ours altogether his own, he made his own the progress of people in wisdom and grace, as well as the fulfillment of the Father's will, which is to say,…

With eyes, lips and faces turned toward it, let us receive the divine burning coal, so that the fire of the coal may be added to the desire within us to consume our sins and enlighten our hearts, and so that by this communion with the divine fire we may be set afire and deified. Isaiah saw a live coal, and this coal was not plain wood but wood joined with…

The circumstances, he says, were such, that they were to preach to the Jews and we, to the nations. But the care for the poor became a matter common to both of them. These poor were those from the Jews who believed in Christ and who had been deprived of their own homes by the Jews; They were those to whom he wrote, For you accepted joyfully the seizure of…

Not by the domestic nature, but by the will of the one receiving.

For the wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him in the day that he turns from his wickedness. If he acts righteously and walks in the statutes of life, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins that he committed shall be remembered against him. Because he has made the decree of righteousness, he shall live by it.

But just as He who was conceived kept her who conceived still virgin, in like manner also He who was born preserved her virginity intact, only passing through her and keeping her closed. [Ezekiel 44:2] The conception, indeed, was through the sense of hearing, but the birth through the usual path by which children come, although some tell tales of His…