Sayings of the Holy Fathers:
If anyone claims to be able to be completely self-sufficient, to be capable of reaching perfections without anyone else's help, to succeed in plumbing the depths of Scripture entirely unaided, he is behaving just like someone trying to practice the trade of a carpenter without touching wood. The Apostle would say to such: 'It is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the Law who will be justified" (Rom. 2:13).
St. Basil the Great
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"A man cannot receive spiritual knowledge except he be converted, and become as a little child. For only then does he experience that delight which belongs to the Kingdom of the Heavens. By `Kingdom of the Heavens' the Scriptures mean spiritual divine vision. This cannot be found through the workings of our deliberations, but by grace it can be tasted. Until a man has been purified, he is not even capable of hearing of it, for no one is able to acquire it by instruction."
St. Isaac the Syrian
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"People are generally called intelligent through a wrong use of this word. The intelligent are not those who have studied..., but those whose soul is intelligent, who can judge what is good and what evil; they avoid what is evil and harms the soul and intelligently care for and practice what is good and profits the soul, greatly thanking God. It is these alone who should properly be called intelligent."
St. Antony the Great
(170 Texts on Saintly Life no. 1)
St. Basil the Great
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"A man cannot receive spiritual knowledge except he be converted, and become as a little child. For only then does he experience that delight which belongs to the Kingdom of the Heavens. By `Kingdom of the Heavens' the Scriptures mean spiritual divine vision. This cannot be found through the workings of our deliberations, but by grace it can be tasted. Until a man has been purified, he is not even capable of hearing of it, for no one is able to acquire it by instruction."
St. Isaac the Syrian
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"People are generally called intelligent through a wrong use of this word. The intelligent are not those who have studied..., but those whose soul is intelligent, who can judge what is good and what evil; they avoid what is evil and harms the soul and intelligently care for and practice what is good and profits the soul, greatly thanking God. It is these alone who should properly be called intelligent."
St. Antony the Great
(170 Texts on Saintly Life no. 1)
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