Category: KNOWLEDGE & SELF-KNOWLEDGE

  • Our fault nowadays is that we read much and meditate little, and therefore do not plumb the depth of our readings.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Contemplations on the Life of St. Antony the Great

  • He read a little in the Bible and did not stop at the literal meaning of words, or their superficial implications, but rather should put the spiritual depth of the words. As Paul the Apostle has said, “Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1. Cor. 16:19).

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Contemplations on the Life of St. Antony the Great

  • He sought the virtues in every person he encountered and learned from them, although he did not copy any one person.

    …

    St. Antony sought knowledge from every available source. That was his first quality as a student. He did not seek knowledge just from great teachers, but from everything and everybody, from every event, every person and even from sinners.

    He learned his first lesson from a dead man. Isn’t it amazing that he gets his first lesson in monasticism not from a living person but from a dead man, and that dead man was his father? When his father died he looked at his body and learned something from it. He looked at his dead father who owned 300 acres of the best farm land in upper Egypt and who had the wealth, power, and influence and said, “Where is your power, your greatness and your might? You have departed from this world not by your choice; I however, will leave it by my choice before I am forced out.” That was his first lesson about dying to the world. “Behold that great rich man filling the world with power and influence, now lies motionless with no control over his own body!”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Contemplations on the Life of St. Antony the Great

  • Say “My Lord Jesus Christ give me understanding.” And when it is difficult to understand something, ask God with all your heart and He will without fail grant you understanding.

    —Pope Kyrillos VI
    Pope Kyrillos: The Patron and Beloved of the Children

  • The love of learning, undoubtedly, is a virtue connected with humility.

    Abba Arsenius, The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons
    Bishop Macarius

  • He also said to a monk who was his friend concerning Egyptian monks, “For our part we have gained nothing from the world’s education, but these rustic Egyptian peasants have acquired the virtues by their own labors.”

    Abba Arsenius, The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons
    Bishop Macarius

  • Clement stresses the fact that philosophy can never take the place of divine revelation. It can only prepare for the acceptance of the faith. Thus, in the second book, he defends faith against the philosophers. 

    (on the book Stromata)

    FATHERS OF THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA – “ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA”
    Esmat Gabriel

    Coptic Church Review
    V1 number 1
    Spring 1980

  • The voice of God was the only answer for all my needs. It was the voice of father, friend, comrade and guide. No sooner did I feel the need for his voice than I heard it speaking inside me a thousand times stronger than an ear would ever hear. For what the ear hears, the mind forgets. But what the heart hears, time can never erase.

    —Matthew the Poor (Abouna Matta El Meskeen)

  • A brother asked an old man. ‘What shall I do, father, for I am not acting at all like a monk, but I eat, drink, and sleep carelessly; and I have evil thoughts and I am in great trouble, passing from one work to another and from one thought to another?’ The old man said,

    ‘Sit in your cell and do the little you can untroubled.

    For I think the little you can do now is of equal value to the great deeds which Abba Antony accomplished on the mountain, and I believe that by remaining sitting in your cell for the name of God, and guarding your conscience, you also will find the place where Abba Antony is.’

    The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers
    Benedicta Ward

  • Abouna Matta had written the two brief pages of the Epilogue to Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way on October 28, 1995. The coherent Coptic epilogist refers to Prayer: Access into the Father’s Presence, and tells of the Holy Spirit speaking within Christians and through them. The Holy Spirit “speaks words known well to those who have experienced him, hot and flaming words that set the whole body on fire. They make man forget his disability and insignificance, nearly lifting him off the ground. For the burden that weighed him down with sins and bound him to this earth disappears.

    ABOUNA MATTA EL MESKEEN
    CONTEMPORARY DESERT MYSTIC
    By John Watson

    COPTIC CHURCH REVIEW
    Volume 27, Numbers 3 & 4