ACC ~ Hebrews 10 v19 - 21

THE INNER TABERNACLE IS FAITH. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: “Therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the sanctuary,” which is faith. In his blood he renewed for us the way of faith that the former priests had already. But since it had become obsolete among them, he renewed it for us at that time “through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

COME TO ME! SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN: The people I am speaking about, whom I call heretics, say there is no one in our time among us who is able to keep the gospel commandments and become like the holy fathers. Such a person would be, first of all, one who is faithful and active—for faith is shown through works, as the likeness of a face is shown through a mirror. Further, this person would be both the greatest of contemplatives and one who sees God, by being illumined, obviously, and receiving the Holy Spirit, and through him seeing the Son together with the Father. Well then, those who say that this is impossible possess not one particular heresy but all of them, if I may say so, because this one outdoes all of those and covers them with irreverence and excess of blasphemy. The one who makes this heretical claim overthrows all the divine Scriptures. I think this vain person is saying that the present reciting of the holy Gospel is in vain, and affirms solemnly that the reading of the writings of Basil the Great and the rest of our priests and holy fathers is in vain, or even that they were written in vain. If, then, the things which God says, all of which all the saints first practiced and then also wrote about and left for our instruction—if these things are impossible for us to do in deed and to keep completely, why is it that those folks labored and wrote about them back then and they are now read in church? Those who are saying these things are shutting heaven, which Christ opened for us, and they cut off the ascending path to that place which he himself inaugurated for us. For even though God, who is above all, stands on high at the gate of heaven, as it were, and peers out and is seen by the faithful, and through the holy Gospel cries out and says, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,”these enemies of God, or rather, enemies of Christ, are saying, “This is impossible, impossible!” DISCOURSE 29.4.

THE VEIL OF FLESH IS LIFTED UP. CHRYSOSTOM: “For the entrance into the sanctuary.” What does he mean here by “entrance”? Heaven and the access to spiritual things. “Which he opened,” that is, which he prepared and which he began. For the beginning of using is thereafter called the opening, which he prepared, he means, and by which he himself passed. “The new and living way.” Here he expresses “the full assurance of hope.” “New,” he says. He is anxious to show that we have all things greater; since now the gates of heaven have been opened, which was not done even for Abraham. “The new and living way,” he says, for the first was a way of death, leading to Hades, but this of life. And yet he did not say, “of life,” but called it indeed “living” namely, that which persists by God’s own command. “Through the curtain,” he says, “of his flesh.” … And with good reason did he call the flesh “a curtain.” For when it was lifted up on high, then the things in heaven appeared. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 19.2.

UNITING THE ANCIENT PEOPLE AND THE GENTILES. ATHANASIUS: If any of our own people inquire, not from love of debate but from love of learning, why he suffered death in no other way save on the cross, let them also be told that no other way than this was good for us, and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our sakes. For if he came himself to bear the curse laid upon us, how else could he have “become a curse” unless he received the death set for a curse? And that is the cross. For this is exactly what is written: “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.” Again, if the Lord’s death is the ransom of all, and by his death “the dividing wall of hostility”is broken down, and the calling of the nations is brought about, how would he have called us to him had he not been crucified? For it is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out. Thus it was fitting for the Lord to bear this also and to spread out his hands, that with the one he might draw the ancient people and with the other those from the Gentiles and unite both in himself. For this is what he himself has said, signifying by what manner of death he was ransom to all: “I, when I am lifted up,” he says, “will draw all men to myself.” For the devil, the enemy of our race, having fallen from heaven, wanders about our lower atmosphere and there, bearing rule over his fellow spirits, as the devil’s peers in disobedience, not only works illusions by their means in them that are deceived but tries to hinder them that are going up. About this the apostle says, “Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,” while the Lord came to cast down the devil and clear the air and prepare the way for us up into heaven, as said the apostle, “Through the curtain, that is to say, his flesh”—and this must be by death. Well, by what other kind of death could this have come to pass than by one which took place in the air, I mean, the cross? For only he that is perfected on the cross dies in the air. Therefore, it was quite fitting that the Lord suffered this death. For thus being lifted up, he cleared the air of the malignity both of the devil and of demons of all kinds, as he says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” and made a new opening of the way up into heav-en, as he says once more, “Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors!”For it was not the Word himself that needed an opening of the gates, being Lord of all; nor were any of his works closed to their maker; but it was we who needed it, whom he carried up by his own body. For as he offered it to death on behalf of all, so by it he once more made ready the way up into the heavens. ON THE INCARNATION 25.

THE NEW WAY IS ALWAYS RECENT. PHOTIUS: He says, “recent,” lest anyone say, “Then if it is recent, it too will cease; for it will age and grow old and it will also be destroyed like that of the old testament.” Not in the least, he says. But since it is always recent, it remains new and will be “living,” for it never receives death and destruction. FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 10.20.

THE HOUSE OF GOD. OECUMENIUS: He calls the faithful “the house of God” in accordance with the passage of Scripture that states, “I will dwell among them and walk in their midst.”FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 10.21.

THE TRUE TABERNACLE IS CHRIST. GREGORY OF NYSSA: Taking a hint from what has been said by Paul, who partially uncovered the mystery of these things, we say that Moses was earlier instructed by a type in the mystery of the tabernacle that encompasses the universe. This tabernacle would be “Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God,” who in his own nature was not made with hands, yet capable of being made when it became necessary for this tabernacle to be erected among us. Thus, the same tabernacle is in a way both unfashioned and fashioned, uncreated in preexistence but created in having received this material composition. LIFE OF MOSES 2.174.

CONVERSING IN ANOTHER FASHION. ISAAC OF NINEVEH: But now, when He has poured out His grace upon the world through His own Coming, He has descended not in an earthquake, not in a fire, not in a terrible and mighty sound, but “as the rain upon a fleece, and rain-drops that fall upon the earth”softly, and He was seen conversing with us after another fashion. This came to pass when, as though in a treasury, He concealed His majesty with the veil of His flesh and among us spoke with us in that body which His own bidding wrought for Him out of the womb of the Virgin, even Mary the Theotokos. All this He did so that, on beholding Him Who was of our race conversing with us, we should not be smitten with terror by the vision of Him.

Wherefore every man has put on Christ when he is clothed with the raiment wherein the Creator was seen through the body that He put on. For the likeness in which He was seen by His own creation and in which He kept company with it, He willed to put on in His inner man, and to be seen therein by His fellow-servants. Instead of a robe of honour and outward glory, He was arrayed in this. When rational and irrational creation beholds any man clad in this likeness, it worships him as master, for the sake of its own Master’s honour, Whom it beheld clad and walking therein. For what creature does not feel reverence at the spectacle of a humble man? And yet until the glory of humility was revealed to all, this vision which is filled with holiness was held in disdain. But now its majesty has dawned on the eyes of the world, and every person honours this likeness in every place where it is seen. In this mediator, creation has been counted worthy of receiving the vision of its Creator and Maker. Wherefore not even by the enemies of the truth is it despised; and even if he who has acquired it is the most impoverished of all creation, yet by it he is honoured as though by the diadem and the purple. ASCETICAL HOMILIES 77.

Heb