Christian Theology

"In his Gospel, St. John, through long and deep contemplation, acknowledges Jesus to be the Logos of God. In his epistles he points entirely away from himself toward Christ. Finally, in the Apocalypse, in the vision of the Lamb of God, Old and New Testaments are united, and the whole drama of salvation is summed up."

"And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills? Bring me my Bow of burning gold, Bring me my Arrows of desire, Bring me my Spear — O clouds, unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire! I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green & pleasant land."

"(All) Let you light so shine before men. Let your light so shine. So that they might know some kindness again. We all need help to feel fine. (Judas) Let's have some wine!"

"(Herb) You are salt of the earth. You are the salt of the earth. But a salt that's lost its flavor ain't got much in its favor!"

"(For Christian referred to the Virgin Mary and Jesus) Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dream."

"(Herb) You are the light of the world! You are the light of the world. But a light under a bushel has lost something kind of crucial You've gotta stay bright to be the light of the world!"

"(Herb) You are the city of god! You are the city of god! But a city on a hill is kinda of hard to hide it well!"

"And once again the scene was chang’d, New earth there seem’d to be, I saw the Holy City Beside the tideless sea; The light of God was on its streets, The gates were open wide, And all who would might enter, And no one was denied. No need of moon or stars by night, Or sun to shine by day, It was the new Jerusalem, That would not pass away."

"For innumerable years, this house of divine light and bliss became the worshipping place for sorcerers and depraved people and the centre for worshippers of idols (made of stones). When the last of the prophets (Muhammad) saw this situation, he lifted Imam ëAli Murtaza on his shoulders so that defiled and impure idols and images were struck down in the House of God. In this way the baituíl-haram (the House of Sanctity) was cleansed of idols and images. In the same manner, Kashmir was a den of wicked people, the source of infidelity and a mine of corruption and aberration. The auspicious steps of Amir Sayyid ëAli Hamadani, the peer of ëAli, turned it (Kashmir) into a place where the law of the religion of Mustafa and the fundamentals of the faith brought by the Prophet flourished fully. Under the guidance and preaching of Amir-e Kabir (Sayyid ëAli Hamadani), the banner of Islamic religion achieved supreme heights. The result of the preaching of His Holiness was that the place of war (daruíl-harb) turned into a place of peace/security (daruís - salam). His precepts and preachings were as follows."

"1. OM: Here follows Instruction in Union. Union, here as always in the Scriptures of India, means union of the individual soul with the Oversoul; of the personal consciousness with the Divine Consciousness, whereby the mortal becomes immortal, and enters the Eternal. Therefore, salvation is, first, freedom from sin and the sorrow which comes from sin, and then a divine and eternal well-being, wherein the soul partakes of the being, the wisdom and glory of God."

"Bacon expresses theological and moral truths in terms of mathematical phraseology. He compares the Trinity to an equilateral triangle, argues that the divine light of grace reaches the good in a direct perpendicular ray, the weak in a refracted ray, and the bad in a reflected ray, and compares the virtues to the rational numbers, and the passions to the irrational, etc."

"The Logos, in truth, is the light of God, but the ignorant soul is darkness. On this account, if it continues solitary, it tends downward towards matter, and dies with the flesh; but, if it enters into union with the Divine Spirit, it is no longer helpless, but ascends to the regions whither the Spirit guides it: for the dwelling-place of the spirit is above, but the origin of the soul is from beneath. Now, in the beginning the spirit was a constant companion of the soul, but the spirit forsook it because it was not willing to follow."

"2. Union, spiritual consciousness, is gained through control of the versatile psychic nature. The goal is the full consciousness of the spiritual man, illumined by the Divine Light. Nothing except the obdurate resistance of the psychic nature keeps us back from the goal. The psychical powers are spiritual powers run wild, perverted, drawn from their proper channel. Therefore our first task is, to regain control of this perverted nature, to chasten, purify and restore the misplaced powers."

"It is only by means of this Prayer that the creature can be really united with his Creator, the goal of the Prayer of Jesus is consequently the supreme spiritual state, in which man is detached from everything pertaining to the creature and being directly united with the Divinity, is illuminated by the Divine Light. This supreme state is "Holy Silence" (hēsychia), symbolized by the black color of the Virgin in certain icons and images."

"Humanity, wake up! Turn Godwards. Turn towards the Divine Light while there is yet time. You can yet mend and make good. However low you may have fallen you can rise yet. The Lord has assured glory even to the worst sinner, if he but mends his ways."

"O Thou Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, what Thou bearest in Thy blessed hands and feet I cannot bear; take it all away. Hide me in the depths of Thy suffering love, mold me to the image of Thy divine passion."

"Nature does not conquer the world to God. It never has. It never will. In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of the echoes from the great white throne are heard."

"He was oppressed and afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. [...] Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the plunder with the strong, Because He poured out His life unto death, And was counted with wrongdoers; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the wrongdoers."

"The next day he *saw Jesus coming to him, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

"The person who has found him is unable to tell this to others as he has seen it, for the discovery is not made by the soul who makes a statement, but by the soul who is initiated in and lies outstretched towards the divine light, not moving with its own movement, but keeping its own silence as it were. For if it is by nature not able to grasp the essential nature of other realities either by name or by a defining proposition or by scientific knowledge, but by intuitive thought (noêsis) alone, as he himself says in the Letters, how could it discover the essential nature of the Demiurge in any other way than intuitively (noerôs)? How could the soul, having found him in this way, be able to report what it had seen by means of nouns and verbs and convey this to others? After all, because discursive thought proceeds through combination, it is unable to express the nature that is unified and simple. ... If discovery takes place by the soul who keeps silent, how could the flow of language through the mouth be sufficient to bring to light the essential nature of what has been discovered?"

"When candle wax is far from the fire, it is solid and can be grasped, but when you put it in the fire it melts, and there it burns in the flame and catches fire and becomes all light and so finds a perfect end in the fire. There is no way for it not to melt in the fire and pour out like water. So too, while man's intellect is by itself, without encountering God, it thinks that everything is solidly in its power. But when it draws near, as it were, to the fire of Divinity and the Holy Spirit, it is completely dominated by that divine light and becomes all light, and there within the flame of the All-Holy Spirit it is set aflame and softened by divine perceptions. And in that fire of Divinity, there is no way for it to consider it own concerns and desires."

"Contemplation, whereby the soul is lifted up into divine magnificence, is exultation of the spirit in divine light, joy in tasting the fruits of Redemption, and an outpouring of love for God for His infinite beauty and goodness. The soul grows in the ways of love when it humbles itself and recognises its own lowliness; it is then that God lowers himself to it and takes pleasure in it, working wonders of grace. To look at God and be looked at by Him, this is the synthesis of the greatest elevations of love: Respixit. Faith looks at Him, hope and charity look at Him, and He turns to us, enlightening us, elevating us and embracing us; the troubled heart, exiled and groaning in this valley of tears, looks at Him, and He pours out His mercy."

"The light of the people of the world is their knowledge and utterance; while the splendours shed from the glorious acts of Him Whom God shall make manifest are His Words, through whose potency He rolleth up the whole world of existence, sets it under His Own authority by relating it unto Himself, then as the Mouthpiece of God, the Source of His divine light — exalted and glorified be He — proclaimeth: ‘Verily, verily, I am God, no God is there but Me; in truth all others except Me are My creatures. Say, O My creatures! Me alone, therefore, should ye fear’."

"One day, as he stood repeating more in his intellect than with his mouth the words, 'God, have mercy upon me, a sinner' (Luke 18:13), suddenly a profuse flood of divine light appeared above him and filled the whole room. As this happened the young man lost his bearings, forgetting whether he was in a house or under a roof; for he saw nothing but light around him and did not even know that he stood upon the earth. He had no fear of falling, or awareness of the world, nor did any of those things that beset men and bodily beings enter his mind. Instead he was wholly united to non-material light, so much so that it seemed to him that he himself had been transformed into light. Oblivious of all else, he was filled with tears and with inexpressible joy and gladness. Then his intellect ascended to heaven and beheld another light, more lucid than the first. Miraculously there appeared to him, standing close to that light, the holy, angelic elder of whom we have spoken and who had given him the short rule and the book."

"Jesus was alone and praying. What a sight! His soul prayed, and in praying he was like a flame rising from a holocaust, for his body was wholly a sacrifice of love. He prayed and was enveloped in the divine splendour of the divine Person of the Word, almost like a torch in the midday rays. He shone with divine light, and drew his body close to him as if it were a cloud of thymian drawn up by the flame. His centre of gravity was no longer the earth but the eternal splendour of the Word, and he tended upwards, made light as a feather."

"The salvation work that started with just the two of us was not at all easy. The hardship that we experienced some days beggared description. It was as if we were walking down a path of thorns. Yet, in our hearts, we were filled with the warm Light of a loving God. Regardless of rain, cold wind, or storms, my father would go out on an old bicycle to help people in trouble. Day and night, he would go as far away as Tachikawa or Hachioji to give Light and teachings, always showing gentle affection for others."

"Love that is truly altruistic seeks no reward and is based on true faith directed towards God. The true practice of altruistic love lies in not seeking anything in return. Yokoshi kamikumite have been given the art of True Light, through which we are able to give the Light of God. This is truly a wonderful gift from God. The foundation of altruistic love lies in giving Light."

"Amaterasu, now is the time. We have never needed your power more. Shine your divine light upon this broken and polluted world. Let your heavenly rays become our hope as you guide us all!"

"There are some who will try to maintain according to God is a body, since they find it written in the book of Moses "Our God is a consuming fire" (DT 4:24) and in the Gospel according to John, "God is Spirit, and they who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth" (Jn 4:24). Now these men will have it that fire and spirit are body and nothing else. But I would ask them what they have to say about this passage of scripture, "God is light," as John says in his epistle, "God is light, and in him is no darkness" (I Jn 1:5). He is that light, surely, which lightens the whole understanding of those who are capable of receiving truth, as it is written in the thirty-fifth psalm, "In thy light shall we see light" CPs 35: 10 [LXX]). For what other light of God can we speak of, in which a man sees light, except God's spiritual power, which when it lightens a man causes him either to see clearly the truth of all things or to know God himself who is called the truth? Such then is the meaning of the saying, "In thy light shall we see light""

"Some people think that to be accepting of the will of God means to be rather passive. However, to readily accept the will of God really means to actively strive to accomplish God’s will. All life form—grasses, trees, human beings and so on—prosper by harmoniously following the will of God. This enables a tree to grow tall and strong and a human being to become virtuous and to achieve great things. We need to firmly understand this divine arrangement. It is essential that we do not limit our potential with shallow human logic and that we become a vessel into which the will of God and the Light of God can smoothly enter."

"Contemplation is a knowing that is unconditioned, For ever dwelling above the Reason. Never can it sink down into the Reason, And above it can the Reason never climb. The shining forth of That which is Unconditioned is as a fair mirror. Wherein shines the Eternal Light of God. It has no attributes, And here all the works of Reason fail. It is not God, But it is the Light whereby we see Him. Those who walk in the Divine Light of it Discover in themselves the Unwalled. That which Unconditioned, Is above the Reason, not without it: It beholds all things without amazement. Amazement is far beneath it: The contemplative life is without amazement. That which is Unconditioned, it knows not what; For it is above all, and is neither This nor That."

"I advise you to recite the Qur'an and remember Allah much, for surely the Qur'an will remember you (do your dhikr) in the Heavens and it will be a Divine Light (nur) for you on the Earth."

"神の御国には、暗の夜もなし。照り輝ける日の御光は、とどまる事なくして、暖かに且つ穏かなり。"

"Over the years my religion has changed and my spirituality has evolved. Religion and spirituality are very different, but people often confuse the two. Some things cannot be taught, but they can be awakened in the heart. Spirituality is recognizing the divine light that is within us all. It doesn't belong to any particular religion; it belongs to everyone."

"Praise consists in the love of God, in wonder at the goodness of God, in recognition of the gifts of God, in seeing God in all things He gives us, ay, and even in the things that He refuses to us; so as to see our whole life in the light of God; and seeing this, to bless Him, adore Him, and glorify Him."

"Grace is from God, and works in the depth of the soul whose powers it employs. It is a light which issues forth to do service under the guidance of the Spirit. The Divine Light permeates the soul, and lifts it above the turmoil of temporal things to rest in God. The soul cannot progress except with the light which God has given it as a nuptial gift; love works the likeness of God into the soul. The peace, freedom and blessedness of all souls consist in their abiding in God's will. Towards this union with God for which it is created the soul strives perpetually."

"​智慧はこれ本来神のひかり、"

"No society is immune from the darkest impulses of man. And too often religion has been used to tap into those darker impulses as opposed to the light of God. Three years ago in our state of Wisconsin, back in the United States, a man went to a Sikh temple and, in a terrible act of violence, killed six innocent people -- Americans and Indians. And in that moment of shared grief, our two countries reaffirmed a basic truth, as we must again today -- that every person has the right to practice their faith how they choose, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination."

"The immense energy Nicholas constantly poured into church reform at every level never obscured his philosophical clarity nor his subtle mysticism. For him, consciousness should ever seek Divine Unity, whilst action should have fraternal harmony as its purpose. The church, according to Nicholas, is a living unity, a fraternity united to the divine presence symbolized in Christ. As Deity is simple and also light, the shadows and reflections which constitute the world catch and transmit the light only to the degree that they form a universal harmony, the primary reflection of Divine Unity. Since Divine Light is simple and therefore the referent of only one Word, language and the categories of thought are necessarily engendered from experience of the realm of shadows...Opposites suggest new levels of synthesis; Deity is the coincidentia oppositorum, the reconciliation of contraries. Thus Nicholas, who taught that knowledge in one sense is conjecture, held that a careful examination of Nature and human thought reveals contraries and contradictions that can guide one to ever greater understanding. He found time to study Islam in detail, to propose a method of squaring any circle, to argue for the rotation of the earth on its axis, and to propose that the universe is boundless in time and space. Harmony is understood, he professed, and unity achieved by loving each and every thing according to its place in the community of Nature...Drawing from Pythagoras, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa kept alive the mystic flame of intuition and passed it to individuals as different as Giordano Bruno and Copernicus. Whilst struggling for moral reform within a decaying structure, he subtly laid the foundation of human dignity upon which both the Renaissance and the Reformation would be built."

"[T]hought is subjected to the interpreting light of God and immortality, which idea, reigning throughout the poem, has made In Memorium the most distinctively theological poem of the century."

"The process which the Kabbalists described as the emanation of divine energy and divine light was also characterized as the unfolding of the divine language. ... They speak of attributes and of spheres of light; but in the same context they speak also of divine names and the letters of which they are composed. ... The elements of the divine language appear as the letters of the Holy Scriptures. Letters and names are not only conventional means of communication. They are far more. Each one of them represents a concentration of energy and expresses a wealth of meaning which cannot be translated, or not fully at least, into human language."

"Because its myriad glimmering plumes Like a great army's stir and wave; Because its golden billows blooms, The poor man's barren walks to lave: Because its sun-shaped blossoms show How souls receive the light of God, And unto earth give back that glow— I thank him for the Goldenrod."

"...and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!"

"When I am radiant in the holy crown like a brilliance that is renewed daily, and the majestic sceptre that amasses abundance has been entrusted into my hands, on my firmly founded throne, [...] granted as a gift, [...] I lift my head high. I am Culgi, the good shepherd of Sumer, and I have always established justice. Like a flood, like onrushing water, I have torn out wickedness as being unclean. As much great praise as I have had sung about me -- by the name of Enlil, none is false, and all is true."

"Praesidibus onerandas tributo provincias suadentibus rescripsit boni pastoris esse tondere pecus, non deglubere."

"In imitation of Christ – the Good Shepherd par excellence – the exercise of the pastoral governance coincides with the offering of a life to the point of full consummation of self. So Christ did, so did the holy pastors."

"[Conversion to Christ] opens up a goal in life towards which to walk [...]. Thus we realise that we are not alone, but that we can walk the new path behind the one Good Shepherd, together with the many brothers and sisters we have received as a gift."

"I, the Sovereign Lord, tell you that I myself will look for my sheep and take care of them in the same way as shepherds take care of their sheep that were scattered and are brought together again. I will bring them back from all the places where they were scattered on that dark, disastrous day."

"In the Old Testament, whenever the people went astray, the kings took responsibility for their actions. A good shepherd will not lead the sheep astray; instead, he lays down his life for the sheep who knows him by his voice as he also knows them by name. Likewise, today we are asking, where was the President and the security agents when the Shakahola massacre was taking place? Mass extermination of people is unacceptable and is not in line with the will of God."

"Mortuary contexts also provide some of the earliest evidence for a Christian visual culture. From the first part of the third century, Christian catacombs featured art depicting biblical scenes of resurrection, salvation, and redemption (Lazarus, Susanna, Daniel in the lions' den, the sacrifice of Isaac), alongside both Christian symbols and pagan images that could convey new meanings (Bisconti, Chapter 11; cf. Bisconti 1999, 100-30 for an overview of common themes). Scholars have likewise long recognized the link between earliest Christian sculpture and themes present in funerary contexts (Kristensen, Chapter 18; Jensen 2000). Parani (Chapter 17) discusses how the earliest lamp forms of the third century with scenes of Noah, Jonah, and the Good Shepherd paralleled funerary art in other media and evoked the Christian concept of redemption and resurrection. Perhaps these mortuary contexts account for the appearance of Christian imagery in other media, although the emergence of amulets with Christian imagery as early as the third or even second centuries seems to indicate a somewhat different purpose; harnessing the power of the Christian god in their daily affairs (Cline, Chapter 19). Despite the troubling absence of secure archaeological contexts, the evidence does point to distinct forms of Christian material culture emerging by the third century that often point to the theological reflection on Christ's victory over death."