• Be faithful in what you know, that you may be entrusted with more. Distrust your intellect, which has so often misled you. My own has been such a deceiver, that I no longer count upon it.

    —François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress

  • [There] is a disease of today’s Orthodox Christians which can be deadly: the “correctness disease.” If you are critical of others, self-confident about your correctness, eager to quote canons to prove someone else is wrong, constantly “knowing better” than others – you have the germs of the “correctness disease.” These are signs of immaturity in spiritual life.

    —Father Seraphim Rose

  • St. Mark, in his new reply to these statements, repeats the Orthodox view that “it is possible for one to be a Teacher and all the same not say everything absolutely correctly, for what need then would the Fathers have had for Ecumenical Councils?—and such private teachings (as opposed to the infallible Scripture and Church Tradition) “we must not believe absolutely or accept without investigation.” He then goes into great detail, with many citations from his works, to show that St. Gregory of Nyssa actually did teach the error ascribed to him (which is nothing less than the denial of eternal torment in hell, and universal salvation), and gives the final authoritative word on this matter to Augustine himself. 

    “That only the canonical Scriptures have infallibility is testified by Blessed Augustine in the words which he writes to Jerome: ‘It is fitting to bestow such honor and veneration only to the books of Scripture which are called “canonical,” for I absolutely believe that none of the authors who wrote them erred in anything…. As for other writings, no matter how great was the excellence of their authors in sanctity and learning, in reading them I do not accept their teaching as true solely on the basis that they thus wrote and thought.‘ Then, in a letter to Fortunatus [St. Mark continues in his citations of Augustine] he writes the following: ‘We should not hold the judgment of a man, even though this man might have been orthodox and had a high reputation, as the same kind of authority as the canonical Scriptures, to the extent of considering it inadmissible for us, out of the reverence we owe such men, to disapprove and reject something in their writing if we should happen to discover that they taught other than the truth which, with God’s help, has been attained by others or by ourselves. This is how I am with regard to the writings of other men; and I desire that the reader will act thus with regard to my writings also.” (St. Mark, “Second Homily on Purgatorial Fire,” chs. 15-16; Pogodin, pp. 127-32).

    The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church
    Fr. Seraphim Rose

  • Intelligence without faith is not as admirable as faith without intelligence.

    —St. Augustine

  • Proverbs 2:10-11 NKJV

    When wisdom enters your heart, And knowledge is pleasant to your soul, Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you,

    Proverbs 12:1 NIV

    Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,

        but whoever hates correction is stupid.

    Wisdom of Solomon 8:7 [Orthodox Study Bible]

    For wisdom teaches self-control, discernment, righteousness and courage,
    Concerning which things there is nothing more valuable in the life of man.

    Eccles 1:18

    For in much wisdom is much knowledge, and he that increases in knowledge increases sorrow

  • Therefore, I beg You, O great Creator, to pardon me if I speak to people about virtues more than I speak to them of You.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Dialogue with the Divine

  • Reveal Yourself to me, because this is the only means to truly know You—not through people or books-but through knowledge which we have seen with our eyes and our hands have handled (1 Jn 1:1).

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Dialogue with the Divine

  • He responds to moral questions with nuanced discernment, holding contradictory perspectives without cognitive dissonance, appreciating partial truth in opposing views.

    CRANIOTOMY: Dissection of your Human Condition
    BONESAW

  • 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