ACC ~ Revelation 4 v8

THE DUTY OF OUR FUTURE GLORY. TERTULLIAN: Certainly it is right that God should be blessed in all places and at all times because it is every person’s duty to be ever mindful of his benefits, but this wish takes the form of a benediction. Moreover, when is the name of God not holy and blessed in itself, when of itself it makes others holy? To him the attending hosts of angels cease not to say, “Holy, holy, holy!” Therefore, we, too—the future comrades of the angels, if we earn this reward—become familiar even while here on this earth with that heavenly cry of praise to God and the duty of our future glory. ON PRAYER 3.2-3.

THE FATHER AND THE SON ARE ONE GOD. RUFINUS OF AQUILEIA: “Almighty” is applied to him on account of the dominion he has over the universe. But the Father governs the universe through the Son, as the apostle himself states: “For through him were all things created, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers.” Again, writing to the Hebrews, he states, “Because through him he made the world and appointed him heir of all things.”By “appointed” we are to take him as meaning “generated.” But if the Father made the world through him, and if through him all things were created and he is the heir of all things, it must be through him that he wields his sway over the universe. Just as light is generated from light and truth from truth, so Almighty is generated from Almighty. So we read in John’s Apocalypse about the seraphim: “And they rested not day and night, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of armies, who was, and who is, and is to come, the Almighty.’” He then who is to come is called Almighty. Who else is to come save Christ, the Son of God? COMMENTARY ON THE APOSTLES’ CREED 5.

THE ANGELS GLORIFY THE ONE AND INDIVISIBLE TRINITY. ATHANASIUS: For what is nearer [God] than the cherubim or the seraphim? And yet they, not even seeing him or standing on their feet, or even with bare, but as it were with veiled faces, offer their praises, with untiring lips doing nothing else but glorifying the divine and ineffable nature with the Trisagion. … For the Triad, praised, reverenced and adored, is one and indivisible and without degrees. It is united without confusion, just as the Monad also is distinguished without separation. For the fact of those venerable living creatures offering their praises three times, saying “Holy, holy, holy,” proves that the three Subsistences are perfect, just as in saying “Lord,” they declare the one Essence. ON LUKE 10:22.

THE CHURCH CEASELESSLY PRAISES GOD. PRIMASIUS: Everywhere diffused in its individual members and in those who profess [the faith], the church ceaselessly praises God by word and deed in times of difficulty and in times of prosperity, and she does this throughout a variety of cities, regions, provinces, languages and peoples. Nor does she cease to praise the Lord day and night, while that perpetual praise continues that is given by those rational creatures in the heavens, in the Jerusalem above, after whose likeness the pilgrim church rejoices to be formed. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 4.8.

Rev