“It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s
mysteries is entrusted. Those doing penance of old are found to have done it before
the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John the
Baptist; but in Acts they confessed to the Apostles, by whom also all were
baptized.”
Letter to a Patrician Lady Caesarea (C. 372 AD):
93
“To communicate each day and to partake of the holy Body and Blood of Christ is
good and beneficial; for He says quite plainly: ‘He that eats My Flesh and drinks
My Blood has eternal life.’ Who can doubt that to share continually in life is the
same thing as having life abundantly? We ourselves communicate four times each
week, on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; and on other days if there is a
commemoration of any saint.”
First Letter to Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium (374 AD):
188, 2
“A woman who has deliberately destroyed a fetus must pay the penalty for
murder.”
188, 13
“Our Fathers did not reckon killings in war as murders, but granted pardon, as it
seems to me, to those who were fighting in defense of virtue and piety. Perhaps,
however, they should be advised that, since their hands are not clean, they should
abstain from Communion for a period of three years.”
The Holy Spirit (375 AD):
12, 28
“Let no one be misled by the fact that the Apostle frequently omits the name of the
Father and of the Holy Spirit when mentioning baptism; nor let anyone suppose
that the invocation of the Names is a matter of indifference…The naming of Christ,
you see, is the confession of the whole; it bespeaks the God who anoints, the Son
who is anointed, and the Spirit who is the anointing…If, then, in baptism the
separation of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is perilous to the one baptizing
and useless to the one receiving, how can it be safe for us to separate the Spirit
from the Father and the Son?”
27, 66
“Of the dogmas and kerygmas preserved in the Church, some we possess from
written teaching and others we receive from the tradition of the Apostles, handed
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