Love

Ladder of Divine Ascent Steps 8 9 SMALL Anger Remembrance of Wrongs
Ladder of Divine Ascent

St John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Freedom from Anger, Meekness, Remembrance of Wrongs, Steps 8 and 9

04/28/2023 Bruce Strom 3

A recurring theme is the Ladder of Divine Ascent is the climb is not a one-time conversion vaulting us to the top of the ladder, but is rather a process, a changing of habits, that we practice for the rest of our lives, ever climbing, until we reach the great IMAX theater in the sky with screens forty feet wide and forty feet tall that replays  the major events in our lives at the end of days.
Step 8.23. “The beginning of blessed patience is to accept dishonor with sorrow and bitterness of soul. The middle stage is to be free from pain in the midst of these things. But perfection, if it is possible, is to regard dishonor as praise. Let the first rejoice; let the second be strong; blessed is the third, for he exults in the Lord.” […]

Phaedrus Part Two on Divine Love
Philosophy

Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Divine Love and the Heavenly Chariot, Part 2

03/24/2023 Bruce Strom 5

In his memorable metaphor for the nature of the soul, Socrates describes “a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him.” […]

Phaedrus Platonic Dialogue On Love
Philosophy

Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Carnal Love and Rhetoric, Part 1

03/22/2023 Bruce Strom 4

Although Socrates does not condemn homosexual love in either dialogue, he is also depicted as being above carnal love, only capable of a philosophical divine love that is only concerned with the goodness of the soul. In the Symposium, the rowdy Alcibiades crashes the dinner party quite drunk, proclaiming how though he and Socrates were the best of friends, even saving his life in the thick of battle, in the end Socrates refused to become his lover. […]

Philosophy

Xenophon and Plato, Socratic Dialogue, Symposium, Divine and Noble Love, Part 2

08/05/2022 Bruce Strom 0

Both of these commandments are the Divine Love that Plato describes in the Symposium. Like the country song suggests, If you don’t love your neighbor, you don’t Love God. As we learned from St John of the Cross, if our love for our neighbor or our love does not increase in us our Love of God, then it is not love at all. Which means that you cannot talk about two types of love, one mortal, one divine, as do the speakers like Agathon in the Symposium, though you could talk about love and lust, love being unselfish, and lust being selfish, caring only about yourself, not caring about the well-being of your partner or friend. […]

Judaism

The Decalogue in the Torah, Blog 2, How One Sin Can Lead to Many More, Up to a Perfect 10

06/25/2021 Jonah Fischer 2

The Decalogue is symmetrical. The commandments to Love G_d with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your possessions are mirrored in the commandments to love your neighbor as yourself. If you steal, murder, or adulter today, yesterday you coveted that which was not yours and could never properly be yours. Coveting is wanting. Coveting is looking. Looking, if not sinful, and it is sinful, is inviting sin to cross under our doorposts. […]

Command 5 Do Not Adulter

St Augustine on Concupiscence, Blog 3, Final Reflections

01/23/2018 Bruce Strom 1

The church teaches that what gives marriage purpose is the bearing of children, so we do not live our lives for ourselves. Salvation is the purpose of marriage, the salvation of our children, the salvation of our spouse, and the working out of our salvation. How does the command to love our neighbor as ourselves work its way out in marriage? We should consider first the good of our children in the living of our lives, then we should work for the good of our spouse, and we should take care of ourselves, but we are last. But last of all in a marriage should be concupiscence, but we should not neglect loving kindness and tenderness, that should pervade all the relationships with our children and with our husband or wife. […]

Command 5 Do Not Adulter

St Augustine on Concupiscence, Blog 2

01/20/2018 Bruce Strom 3

St Augustine starts his discussion on “On the Good of Marriage” with a discussion how marriage is first a friendship in bonds of family, and a friendship between man and wife, friends who walk together, side by side, raising children, growing old together. St Augustine is a bit harsher in “Marriage and Concupiscence,” teaching that “in matrimony, let these nuptial blessings b the objects of our love – offspring, fidelity, the sacramental bond.” This sacramental bond is meant to be ever-enduring, “lost neither by divorce nor by adultery, and should be guarded by husband and wife with concord and charity.” […]

Command 5 Do Not Adulter

St Augustine on Concupiscence, Blog 1

01/18/2018 Bruce Strom 5

St Augustine’s most famous quote, made before his ultimate conversion, was a prayer to God, “Please, Lord, grant me chastity, but not yet.” This shows that St Augustine was quite human, just like us, and quite honest about his struggles with intimacy. Let us give St Augustine the benefit of the doubt, let us read him hagiographically, for even though the modern world with modern technology differs greatly from the world of the ancient Christian, St Augustine has much to teach us, and we can benefit from his teaching, finding purpose in our family life, working out our salvation through the raising of our children and through our relationships with our spouse and other family members and close friends. […]

Early Church Writing

Didache: Early Church Writing

12/25/2017 Bruce Strom 2

What is the Way of Life? You shall Love God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and all of your mind and with all of your strength, and you should love your neighbor as yourself, and you should never do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Thus opens the first paragraph of the Didache, which may be among the most ancient patristic works surviving. […]