st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
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"<br />
a mountain being the chosen spot.<br />
SERMONS. 109<br />
A mountain, as<br />
rising high above the level <strong>of</strong> the earth, is a symbol<br />
<strong>of</strong> that charity, or love, which is the crowning Chris<br />
tian grace. To readers <strong>of</strong> the works bearing the<br />
name <strong>of</strong> Dionysius the Areopagite, this thought will<br />
be a familiar one. Through the successive <strong>st</strong>ages <strong>of</strong><br />
purification and illumination the soul mu<strong>st</strong> rise to its<br />
perfection ; as through faith and hope we reach the<br />
"<br />
empyrean summit <strong>of</strong> love. Wherefore," St. John<br />
<strong>of</strong> Damascus continues,<br />
"we should leave to the<br />
earth what is earthy, and surmount this body <strong>of</strong> our<br />
humiliation, and borne on high to the l<strong>of</strong>ty and divine<br />
watch-tower <strong>of</strong> love, there gaze on what had baffled<br />
our gaze. For he who has attained to the eminence<br />
<strong>of</strong> love, being in a measure out <strong>of</strong> himself, discerns<br />
the unseen, and by soaring<br />
above the gloom<br />
<strong>of</strong> this<br />
corporeal cloud that hovers over him, and reaching<br />
the clear upper air <strong>of</strong> the soul, fixes a more piercing<br />
gaze upon the Sun <strong>of</strong> Righteousness, even though<br />
unable as yet to be fully sated with the spectacle."<br />
And on the words apart and to pray, brought to<br />
gether by joining the accounts <strong>of</strong> the fir<strong>st</strong> and third<br />
evangeli<strong>st</strong>, he adds the pithy comment, For quietude<br />
is the mother <strong>of</strong> prayer as ; prayer is the manife<strong>st</strong>a<br />
tion <strong>of</strong> divine glory" (c. x.).<br />
The Transfiguration<br />
itself was not an assuming <strong>of</strong> what Chri<strong>st</strong> had not<br />
before, but a manife<strong>st</strong>ing to the disciples <strong>of</strong> that<br />
which he had ; their eyes being opened, so that,<br />
while hitherto but blind, they were now enabled to<br />
see (c. xii.).<br />
From the words,<br />
"his face did shine as<br />
the sun,"<br />
he draws another illu<strong>st</strong>ration <strong>of</strong> the topic<br />
ever present to his thoughts, the tw<strong>of</strong>old nature <strong>of</strong>