Augustine Resurrection Quotes

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7].

It is in hope, therefore, that a man lives, as the ‘son of the resurrection’; it is in hope that the City of God lives, during its pilgrimage on earth, that City which is brought into being by faith in Christ’s resurrection. For Abel’s name means ‘lamentation’,109 and the name of Seth, his brother, means ‘resurrection’. And so in those two men the death of Christ and his life from among the dead, are prefigured. As

In sum, the Trinity is manifest in a creation constituted as an icon of the God who is love, and thus a creation whose very form is Church, whose highest expression is the crucified, resurrected, and glorified Christ

Now Cain (whose name means ‘possession’) is the founder of the earthly city, and Enoch (‘dedication’) is the son in whose name the city was founded. This indicates that this city has its beginning and end on this earth, where there is no hope of anything beyond what can be seen in this world. In contrast with him is Seth, whose name means ‘resurrection’. He

I need the wisdom, reasoning, and apologetics of C. S. Lewis, though some of his theological beliefs are different from mine. I need the preaching and charisma of Charles Spurgeon, though his view of baptism is different from mine. I need the resurrection vision of N. T. Wright and the theology of Jonathan Edwards, though their views on church government are different from mine. I need the passion and prophetic courage of Martin Luther King Jr., the cultural intelligence of Soong-Chan Rah, and the Confessions of St. Augustine, though their ethnicities are different from mine. I need the justice impulse and communal passion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, though his nationality is different from mine. I need the spiritual thirst and love drive of Brennan Manning and the prophetic wit of G. K. Chesterton, though both are Roman Catholics and I am a Protestant. I need the hymns and personal holiness of John and Charles Wesley, though some of their doctrinal distinctives are different from mine. I need the glorious weakness of Joni Eareckson Tada, the spirituality of Marva Dawn, the trusting perseverance of Elisabeth Elliot, the long-suffering spirit of Amy Carmichael, the transparency of Rebekah Lyons, the thankfulness of Ann Voskamp, the Kingdom vision of Amy Sherman, and the integrity of Patti Sauls, though their gender is different from mine. As St. Augustine reputedly said, “In nonessentials, liberty.” To this we might add, “In nonessentials, open-minded receptivity.” We Christians must allow ourselves to be shaped by other believers. The more we move outside the lines of our own traditions and cultures, the more we will also be moving toward Jesus.

With a combination of proper lighting and climate control he managed to achieve a different ecological niche in each gallery. In the African section, where the imbrications of Augustine, Mafouz and Okri lay decomposing, he grew sorghum and Dioscorea yams. In the Chinese gallery where the Tao Te Ching and countless Confucian annotations moldered, he grew rice, crab apples and barley. Over the poems of Neruda and Borges himself, he grew potatoes. Each plant in this new Eden he lovingly tainted with the virus of civilization - from the short story "Resurrection

She says, "Afterward He shall come into the injurious hands of the unbelieving, and they will give God buffets with profane hands, and with impure mouth will spit out envenomed spittle; but He will with simplicity yield His holy back to stripes.  And He will hold His peace when struck with the fist, that no one may find out what word, or whence, He comes to speak to hell; and He shall be crowned with a crown of thorns.  And they gave Him gall for meat, and vinegar for His thirst:they will spread this table of inhospitality.  For thou thyself, being foolish, hast not understood thy God, deluding the minds of mortals, but hast both crowned Him with thorns and mingled for Him bitter gall.  But the veil of the temple shall be rent; and at midday it shall be darker than night for three hours.  And He shall die the death, taking sleep for three days; and then returning from hell, He first shall come to the light, the beginning of the resurrection being shown to the recalled.  "Lactantius

Psalm 5 Song of the Clouded Dawn For the Pure and Shining One, for her who receives the inheritance.11 By King David. 1Listen to my passionate prayer! Can’t You hear my groaning? 2Don’t You hear how I’m crying out to You? My King and my God, consider my every word, For I am calling out to You. 3At each and every sunrise You will hear my voice As I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to You. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar And wait for Your fire to fall upon my heart.12 4I know that You, God, Are never pleased with lawlessness, And evil ones will never be invited As guests in Your house. 5Boasters collapse, unable to survive Your scrutiny, For Your hatred of evildoers is clear. 6You will make an end of all those who lie. How You hate their hypocrisy And despise all who love violence! 7But I know the way back home, And I know that You will welcome me Into Your house, For I am covered by Your covenant of mercy and love. So I come to Your sanctuary with deepest awe, To bow in worship and adore You. 8Lord, lead me in the pathways of Your pleasure, Just like You promised me You would, Or else my enemies will conquer me. Smooth out Your road in front of me, Straight and level so that I will know where to walk. 9For you can’t trust anything they say. Their hearts are nothing but deep pits of destruction, Drawing people into their darkness with their speeches. They are smooth-tongued deceivers Who flatter with their words! 10Declare them guilty, O God! Let their own schemes be their downfall! Let the guilt of their sins collapse on top of them, For they rebel against You. 11But let them all be glad, Those who turn aside to hide themselves in You, May they keep shouting for joy forever! Overshadow them in Your presence As they sing and rejoice, Then every lover of Your name Will burst forth with endless joy. 12Lord, how wonderfully You bless the righteous. Your favor wraps around each one and Covers them Under Your canopy of kindness and joy. 11. 5:Title The Hebrew word used here is Neliloth, or “flutes.” It can also be translated “inheritances.” The early church father, Augustine, translated this: “For her who receives the inheritance,” meaning the church of Jesus Christ. God the Father told the Son in Psalm 2 to ask for His inheritance; here we see it is the church that receives what Jesus asks for. We receive our inheritance of eternal life through the cross and resurrection of the Son of God. The Septuagint reads “For the end,” also found in numerous inscriptions of the Psalms. 12. 5:3 Implied in the concept of preparing the morning sacrifice. The Aramaic text states, “At dawn I shall be ready and shall appear before You.

He was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (3:18). It is difficult to decide whether “spirit” should be capitalized (AV) or not (RSV), depending on whether the spirit is Christ’s spirit in contrast to his body, or whether it is the Holy Spirit. If it is the former, we may have the idea of an altogether “spiritual resurrection” in contrast to the resurrection of the body. This, however, is contrary to primitive Christian belief, which always thought of the resurrection of the body, although of a body transformed by the Holy Spirit. It is better, therefore, to take flesh and spirit not as two parts of Christ, but two different ways of viewing the whole Christ. Flesh is the human sphere of existence; Spirit is Christ in his heavenly sphere of existence.21 This can include his bodily resurrection, but the body glorified by the Holy Spirit. Our problem is with the words that follow: “in which [i.e., in the Spirit] he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (3:19-20). We can do little more than outline the three major interpretations.22 The older patristic interpretation is that in the intermediate state, Christ in the Spirit went and preached the gospel to the spirits of dead people imprisoned in Hades, who either lived in the days of Noah or in the time before Christ.23 This view soon lost favor, for it opened the door to the possibility of salvation after death. A second view, held by Augustine and many Reformers, holds that Christ in his pre-existent state of being preached the gospel through Noah to Noah’s living contemporaries. The third view, most widely accepted today, is that in the intermediate state Christ proclaimed the victory of the gospel to fallen angels imprisoned in Hades.24 The “preaching” involved may not mean an offer of salvation, but the triumphant announcement that through his death and resurrection, Christ had broken the power of the spirit world.25

GRACE IS THE answer to that question. Grace is the answer to the call for help. Grace isn’t just forgiveness, a covering, an acquittal; it is an infusion, a transplant, a resurrection, a revolution of the will and wants. It’s the hand of a Higher Power that made you and loves you reaching into your soul with the gift of a new will. Grace is freedom.

Augustine in City of God pictures a resurrection in which the bodily systems we no longer need to protect ourselves can use energy to praise God.

The hope of enduring love, a love stronger than death, is not some natural immortality; it is a life bought by the death of God, the resurrection of the Crucified, which now yields hope as a spoil of victory over the grave.

THE ARRIVAL OF DEVIL, DEMONS, HELL, RESURRECTION AND ARMAGEDDON WERE FOREIGN TO Judaism. With the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon, (539 BCE) came many other diverse ideas about god and goddesses and sex. The philosophers and rabbis brought back a recharged and unified religious idea of one god and his power. But instead of bringing back a purer religion they brought back one filled with non-Jewish baggage. The Babylonian group returned with many diverse ideas that did not fit well with this scheme. Most biblical scholars agree that Jews brought back from Babylon numerous concepts garnered from Persian Zoroastrianism, such as a devil, demons, hell, resurrection, afterlife and Armageddon. All of these ideas entered Judaism deeply and surfaced with fantastic aberrations in Christianity and Islam. Augustine’s teaching made it clear that Christians should realize erections were a disease caused by the original sin of lust. This one man, more than any other Christian, set the Church on a path of denying the body and denying sex and sensuality, and condemning women as instrument of the devil. “...everyone is evil and carnal because of Adam,” Augustine wrote. ‘every human has been contaminated”. He declared that semen was the agent transferring this pollution from one generation to the next. Pagans had been mocking Christian celibates as being unmanly according to the Roman tradition. Augustine said no; men who had sex conquered only weak women. At this point in time, the great phallus of creation, worshiped for millennia became the organ of uncontrollable lust to be suppressed in all of Europe. Augustine’s proclamations would proliferate all over Europe, self- loathing expanding like a plague across the continent. Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant religions all inherited this lasting legacy for Western culture, enduring even after the partial eclipse of Catholic Church ideology in the Renaissance.

the pastoral office was once compatible with robust theological scholarship. Irenaeus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Anselm, Calvin, Edwards, Wesley, etc., all demonstrate the historic and native relationship between theological leadership and the pastoral vocation. But we have lost sight of this

Sometimes people ask me how I can be both a Catholic and a scientist, particularly a scientist who, at least for some research, studies evolution. I tell them that they are confusing us with Evangelicals. Catholics don't have anything against evolution. A literal interpretation of the Bible, the kind that says that the earth is six thousand years old, has never been a part of our religion, at least not since the Saint Augustine warned against preaching idiocy to Pagans in 415 AD. He said that if you tell people that they have to believe in things that they know are not true and that do not matter then they will never believe you when you tell them things that are true and that do matter, things about Christ and the resurrection. The Church's friendliness towards science is not to protect science. It is to protect Christianity.