Showing posts with label Prophet Solomon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prophet Solomon. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
"She is a tree of life to all that lay hold upon her..."
Christ Crucified and His Precious Cross as the Tree of Life, mosaic from San Clemente in Rome (1118) (source)
My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loves, he rebukes, and scourges every son whom he receives. Blessed is He who Finds Wisdom Blessed is the man who has found wisdom, and the mortal who knows prudence. For it is better to traffic for her, than for treasures of gold and silver. And she is more valuable than precious stones: no evil thing shall resist her: she is well known to all that approach her, and no precious thing is equal to her in value. For length of existence and years of life are in her right hand; and in her left hand are wealth and glory: out of her mouth proceeds righteousness, and she carries law and mercy upon her tongue. Her ways are good ways, and all her paths are peaceful. She is a tree of life to all that lay hold upon her; and she is a secure help to all that stay themselves on her, as on the Lord.
-Proverbs 3:11-18, read at the Great Vespers for the Feast of the Precious Cross
(source)
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Prophets David and Solomon and the Ark of the Covenant prefiguring the Theotokos
The Theotokos and Christ enthroned, surrounded by Prophets David and Solomon (http://www.icon.lt/ic0008.html)
The Holy Prophet David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant (http://skete.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=2164, http://www.ruicon.ru/arts-new/fresco/1x1-dtl/rospisi_stavronikita/vnesenie_kovchega_zaveta_v_ierusalim_levij_fragment/?page_18=1873&p_f_12_63=1&ref-cat=&p_f_12_temp_id=1&ref-cat=)
"He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals...David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets."
2 Samuel 6:2-5, 14-15
"Let us dance in spirit with David; to-day the Ark of God [the Theotokos] is at rest."
-St. John of Damascus, Second Homily on the Dormition of the Theotokos (http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-dormition-of-theotokos-by-st-john-of_14.html)
The Prophet David playing instruments and dancing before the Ark of the Covenant (http://vatopaidi.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/cebfceb9cebacebfceb3ceadcebdceb5ceb9ceb1-cf84cebfcf85-cebbceb1cebfcf8dcf84cebfcf85.jpg)
"When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God."
2 Samuel 6:6-7
"Just punishment intervened to cut off the sacrilegious hands of the presumptuous [Jewish priest who tried to overturn the bier of the Theotokos], for God guarded with the glory of the godhead the reverence due to the living Ark, in which the Word had become flesh."
-St. John of Damascus, Canon for the Dormition of the Theotokos, Ode 3 (http://anastasis.org.uk/15aug.htm)
The Theotokos greeting St. Elizabeth (Icon courtesy of www.eikonografos.com used with permission)
"David was afraid of the LORD that day and said, "How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?"
2 Samuel 6:9
"And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
Luke 1:41-43
"The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed him and his entire household."
2 Samuel 6:11
"And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home."
Luke 1:56
The Prophet Solomon and the Priests bringing the Ark into the Holy Place (http://skete.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=2492, http://www.ruicon.ru/arts-new/fresco/1x1-dtl/rospisi_stavronikita/vozdvizhenie_kovchega_zaveta_svyashennikami_pravij/?page_18=1874&p_f_12_63=1&ref-cat=&p_f_12_temp_id=1&ref-cat=)
"Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the LORD's covenant from Zion, the City of David. All the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, and they brought up the ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests and Levites carried them up, and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted. The priests then brought the ark of the LORD's covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its carrying poles. These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple. Then Solomon said, "The LORD has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever."
1 Kings 8:1-13
The Holy Prophets David and Solomon (source)
"When the Ark of God [the Theotokos], departing from Mount Sion for the heavenly country, was borne on the shoulders of the Apostles, it was placed on the way in the tomb. First it was taken through the city, as a bride dazzling with spiritual radiance, and then carried to the sacred place of Gethsemane, angels overshadowing it with their wings, going before, accompanying, and following it, together with the whole assembly of the Church. King Solomon compelled all the elders of Israel in Sion to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the city of David, that is Sion, to rest in the temple of the Lord, which he had built, and the priests took the ark and the tabernacle of the testimony, and the priests and levites raised it. And the king and all the people sacrificed numberless oxen and sheep before the ark. And the priests carried in the ark of the testimony of God into its place, into the Holy of Holies, beneath the wings of the cherubim. So is it now with the dwelling-place of the true ark, no longer of the testimony, but the very substance of God the Word. The new Solomon, the Prince of peace, the Creator of all things in the heavens and on the earth, assembled together to-day the supporters of the new covenant, that is the Apostles, with all the people of the saints in Jerusalem, brought in her soul through angels to the true Holy of Holies, under the wings of the four living creatures, and set her on His throne within the Veil, where Christ Himself had preceded her. Her body the while is borne by the Apostles' hands, the King of Kings covering her with the splendour of His invisible Godhead, the whole assembly of the saints preceding her, with sacred song and sacrifice of praise until through the tomb it was placed in the delights of Eden, the heavenly tabernacles."
Excerpts from St. John of Damascus' Second Sermon on the Dormition of he Theotokos
(http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-dormition-of-theotokos-by-st-john-of_14.html)
Prophet Solomon and the Priests before the Ark (http://www.byzantineiconography.gr/en/gallery/st_nektarios.asp)
The people of Israel with the Ark of the Covenant passing through the Jordan - from the Phiale of the Monastery of Zoothochou Pigi, Dunlap, CA (http://analogion.gr/logos/monasteries/20-im-zwodoxou-phghs)
The Theotokos and Christ surrounded by the Prophets and Saints (http://www.cirota.ru/forum/view.php?subj=85988)
Most-Holy Theotokos save us!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Patristic Commentary on the Song of Solomon - Part II
For Part I covering the spirituality and DIVINE eros of the Song of Songs, along with a passage on the Resurrection, see: http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2010/04/patristic-commentary-on-song-of-solomon.html.
A Myrrhbearer (likely St. Mary Magdalene) with Christ at His Tomb after His Resurrection (http://stage.srpskoblago.org/Archives/Decani/exhibits/Collections/AfterResurrection/CX4K3249_l.html)
"By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me."
Song of Solomon 3:1-4
I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me."
Song of Solomon 3:1-4
St. Mary Magdalene beholding the risen Christ (source)
"And because we see the heavenly mysteries represented allegorically on earth through the gospel, let us come to Mary Magdalene and to the other Mary. Let us meditate upon how they sought Christ at night in the bed of his body, in which he lay dead, when the angel said to them, "You seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen. Why then do you seek in the tomb him who is now in heaven? Why do you seek in the bonds of the tomb him who frees all men of their bonds? The tomb is not his dwelling, but heaven is. And so one of them says, 'I sought him and I did not find him'."
-St. Ambrose of Milan, "On Isaac, of the Soul"
"'In my chamber by night I sought him." This refers to the women who came at the beginning of the morning on the sabbath to the tomb of Jesus and did not find him. He is in the chamber, therefore, or away from the chamber. Or perhaps they call their chamber the Lord's tomb because we are buried together with him. But when they did not find him, they heard at once: 'He is not here, for he has been raised.' And they discovered guardian angels, whom they asked, 'Where have you laid the Lord?' Then, when they had left the angels whom they were questioning, the Lord met them and said, 'Rejoice.' For this reason, it says, 'When I had passed by them for a little while, I found him whom I will not let go.' She grasped his feet and heard, 'Don't hold me.' Finally, he called the gathering of the apostles the house of the mother, to whom he announced the resurrection of Christ.
-St. Cyril of Alexandria, "Fragments in the Commentary on the Song of Songs"
Christ appearing to the Myrrhbearers after His Resurrection, and their announcing the Resurrection to the Apostles (http://www.srpskoblago.org/Archives/Pec/exhibits/ChurchoftheVirginHodegetria/Nave/WestArmoftheCross/NorthWall/282N2402_l.html)
"Let us follow him by day, the present day of the church, which Abraham saw and was glad. This is why we follow Christ during the day; for he will not be found by night. 'Upon my bed,' Scripture says, 'by night I sought him whom my soul loves. I called him, but he gave no answer.'"
-St. Ambrose of Milan, "On Virginity"
"We seek the one we love upon our beds when we sigh with longing for our Redeemer during our short period of rest during the present life. We seek him during the night, because even though our hearts are already watchful for him, our eyes are still darkened. But it remains for the person who does not find the one he loves to rise and go about the city, that is, he must travel about the holy church of the elect with an inquiring heart. He must seek her through its streets and squares, making his way, that is, through narrow and broad places, on the watch to make inquiries if any traces of her can be found in them, because there are some, even of those leading worldly lives, who have something worth imitating of virtue in their actions. The watchment who guard the city find us as we search, because the holy fathers who guard the church's orthodoxy come to meet our good efforts, to teach us, by their words of their writings. Scarcely have we passed them by when we find him whom we love. Although in his humility our Redeemer was a human being in the midst of human beings, in his divinity he was above human beings. Therefore once the watchmen have been passed by, the beloved is found."
-St. Gregory Dialogos, "Forty Gospel Homilies 25"
"Happy the person in whose heart Jesus sets his feet every day! If only he would set his feet in my heart! If only his footsteps would cling to my heart forever! If only I may say with the spouse, 'I took hold of him and would not let him go.'"
-St. Jerome, "Homilies on the Psalms 26"
(http://books.google.com/books?id=cMxzdmLEL8UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Proverbs,+Ecclesiastes,+Song+of+Solomon+By+John+Robert+Wright,+Thomas+C.+Oden&source=bl&ots=pgC37hCnZH&sig=V5CMm7dbQylCtrYaYdHu_9acqS0&hl=en&ei=Mb_YS-_iHpCS8gTh0KGoBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=where&f=false)
Christ greeting the Most-Holy Theotokos, and St. Mary Magdalene after His Holy Resurrection (http://uncutmountainsupply.com/proddetail.asp?prod=11L16)
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)










