Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Do not tie yourself to your passions

From the Prologue of Ohrid

From St. Nikolai Velimirovich of Ohrid's Prologue: St. Clement of Alexandria tells of a horrible custom among the barbarians. He says that when they capture their enemy, they tie him alive to the corpse of a dead man and leave them bound together so that the living and dead rot together. If only it could be said: "Thank God that this barbarian custom is past!" In essence it has not passed, but reigns today in full force. Everyone who ties their living spirit to flesh deadened by barbarian passions is the same as the one who ties a living man to a corpse and leaves them both to decay.

Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας

Here's the direct quote from Clement's Exortation to the Greeks/Heathens: For that wicked reptile monster, by his enchantments, enslaves and plagues men even till now; inflicting, as seems to me, such barbarous vengeance on them as those who are said to bind the captives to corpses till they rot together. This wicked tyrant and serpent, accordingly, binding fast with the miserable chain of superstition whomsoever he can draw to his side from their birth, to stones, and stocks, and images, and such like idols, may with truth be said to have taken and buried living men with those dead idols, till both suffer corruption together.

No comments:

Post a Comment