Greek Old Testament

Gregory: Sermon 44 on the New/Easter Sunday

For a sign of six days and seven days is the present life and the future one. For of the numbers mentioned here, some refer to the present, and others to the future; and they show the ascent from earth to heaven. A beautiful arrangement. But the highest cause of the statement, and [the one] before all, I would call [this]: that the completion of all the days, in the number seven, hints at the present life. For in this way, the almighty God made the world in a six-day period. The seven and the eight seem to be [important] not only among us but also among those from outside referring to pagan or secular philosophers.

pas: a? no? m?

For all of his life, and that from the beginning of time until now, which is composed by us,

ma: k: η: p: γ

a testimony is provided to us sufficiently; which you might learn even from the divine apostle.

Chrys: Sermon?: ...?

In the epistle to the Hebrews we are taught this: that the life in the number seven

Chrys: ...?

has a certain cessation and rest; but the eight is a type of the coming age.

Acts: 2

For it has neither a beginning nor an end; and this is signified through the eighth day,

Acts: 12

upon which also our Lord Jesus Christ, having risen from the dead,

Gregory: On the Funeral Oration of the Father

granted us the symbol of the unending life. Since the blessed Paul also says, that if we are hoping in Christ only in this life, we are more pitiable than all men. Not that the struggle itself is pitiable, but that if our hope is circumscribed limited in the present things, what is the profit of the labors, if we do not also receive the rewards in the coming life? And since the most divine David also sings with him,

Gregory: Sermon 44 on the New/Easter Sunday

and some demand to rest in these [present things]; but I say that to die to them is to live with God in this life. Therefore, the one who [dies] in the presence of the Lord is called blessed, even in the midst of his own passing; and yet in this life and for the blessed, [there are] many grievous things. But how is he not blessed, who, being in such cares,

Euseb: ...?

desires the state of the heavens? For this is the truly blessed [state], that which is not shaken; but the happiness of present things is a shadow and a dream. And just as the waves in the sea, shifting differently at different times, and never remaining in the same place; but the ancestral piety always thinks the same things, and has its hope unshaken. Which even now the divine word suggests to us.

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