Homily on the Circumcision of the Lord (excerpt)

By Saint Dimitry of Rostov

“When the Archangel Gabriel descended from heaven and appeared to the most pure Virgin Mary, he made known that her Son would be called thus; whereupon, she consented to the tidings and cried, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1). And immediately, the Word of God assumed flesh and took up His dwelling in her immaculate, most sacred womb. At His circumcision, the Name disclosed by the herald before the Virgin conceived was formally given to Christ the Lord to announce the coming of our salvation. Jesus means salvation, as the same angel explained to Joseph in a dream, saying, Thou shalt call His Name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins (Matt. 1). Similarly, the Apostle Peter declared, There is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4). The saving Name of Jesus was reserved by the pre-eternal counsel of the Holy Trinity for our salvation, and on this day the righteous Joseph brings it forth like a priceless pearl from heaven's treasury, so that it may be used to redeem the whole human race. In it are revealed the hidden and secret things of God's wisdom (Ps. 50). It shines on the world like the sun, as the prophet tells us: “To you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise.” It fills creation with the fragrance of myrrh, as it is written: “Thy Name is ointment poured forth” (Song of Sol. 1). It is poured out and no longer hidden. So long as myrrh is kept enclosed in a jar, its aroma is trapped, but when the seal is broken fragrance fills the air. Similarly, while Jesus' Name remained spoken only in pre-eternal counsels, its power remains unknown, sealed as it were, in a jar. When the infant's blood was spilled during circumcision, however, it descended from heaven to earth like the sweet-smelling myrrh of grace. Now every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2).

The power of Jesus' wondrous Name has been revealed, causing angels to marvel, mankind to rejoice, and demons to tremble; for the devils also believe, and tremble (James 22). Hades is shaken by this Name; the foundations of the abyss are undermined; the prince of darkness flees; idols are toppled; the gloom of idolatry is dispelled; and the light of piety is shed abroad, illumining every man that cometh into the world (John 21). Every knee of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth (Phil. 22) bows at the sound of Jesus' most glorious Name. It is become our powerful weapon against adversaries; therefore, Saint John of the Ladder counsels, "Flog the adversaries incessantly with the Name of Jesus; there is no weapon more powerful in heaven or on earth" (The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 15). How sweet is this precious Name to those that seek and love Jesus Christ! Jesus is their sole desire, their only delight. How beloved is this all-holy Name to Jesus' servants and prisoners, captives of His love! Jesus is in their thoughts, Jesus is upon their lips. With the heart they believe in Jesus unto righteousness; with the mouth they confess Jesus unto salvation (Rom. 10). Whether they are sitting or walking - whatever they may be doing - Jesus is before their eyes. I determined not to know anything among, you, save Jesus, (I Cor. 2) says the Apostle. For the man who cleaves to His Name, Jesus is the mind's enlightenment, the soul's adornment, strength of body, happiness of soul, a helper in afflictions, joy amid sorrows, the healing of illnesses, consolation in misfortunes, hope of salvation, and a welcome recompense.

In days of old, relates Jerome, God's Name was inscribed on a golden plate worn on the High Priest's forehead; now the divine Name of Jesus is marked in letters of blood spilled at the circumcision. It is written not on gold plaques, but on the hearts and lips of the Saviour's  servants. Thus Christ testified regarding the Apostle Paul, He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My Name. (Acts 9) Sweetest Jesus wishes His Name to be held like sweet food in a vessel, for verily, He is sweet to all who partake of Him lovingly. It says of Him in the Psalms, O taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 33). Having tasted His sweetness, the prophet cried, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength, (Ps. 17) and the Holy Apostle Peter exclaimed, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee, (Matt. 19) to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life (John 6). Having tasted His sweetness, the holy martyrs feared neither bitter torments nor bitterest death, but shouted, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or sword, (Rom. 8) or death, or life? For love is strong as death? (Song of Sol. 8)

What material was used for the receptacle which holds the ineffable sweetness of Jesus' Name? Certainly gold, tried in the furnace of afflictions and sorrows. The vessel is adorned with precious stones, the wounds Jesus adorned on our behalf, and proclaims as it were with human voice, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. (Gal. 6) The sacred Name of Jesus requires a suitable receptacle, such as is worthy to hold the sweetness, the most precious contents. Not by chance does Jesus bleed on the day He is Named. He wishes the container holding His Name to be dyed crimson. No sooner had He claimed the Apostle Paul as His chosen vessel, than He declared, I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake. (Acts 9) “Behold My bloody, wounded vessel!” proclaims the Lord regarding His sufferer, who resists unto blood, striving against sin. (Heb. 12) On his flesh the Name of Jesus is painfully engraved in blood-red letters.

We lovingly praise and fervently revere Thy sweetest and most holy Name, O most sweet, All-compassionate Jesus! We fall prostrate before the blood that dripped at Thy circumcision, O Thou Who art at once a blameless child and the perfect Lord. For the sake of Thine exalted Name, of Thy most precious Blood, and of Thine immaculate Mother, who bore Thee without corruption, do Thou shed upon us Thy rich mercy. Sweeten our hearts with Thy presence, O Jesus. Keep and preserve Thy servants, and receive us into Thy Kingdom, that with angels we may hymn and glorify Thy most honorable and majestic Name forever. Amen.”

The Great Collection of the Lives of Saints, Vol. 5, Chrysostom Press, 2002.

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. John Chrysostom

“Holy and fearful is His Name” (Ps. 110:9), that is, it is worthy of wonder and awe... And in what way is His Name holy and fearful? Demons are in fear of it and illnesses flee from it. With this Name the Apostles conquered the whole universe; David was victorious over the alien using it instead of a weapon; by means of it are done many mighty deeds; by means of it we perform the Mysteries. Considering, therefore, how many wonders His Name achieves, how many benefits, how it confounds His opponents, how it gives security to Hos own, and pondering the things that surpass natural logic and defy human reason, he says "holy and fearful is His Name." And if it is holy, it requires holy mouths for singing praise, holy and pure.

St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on Psalm 110

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Nicephorus of Constantinople

“In truth, just as churches receive the name of their holy patron saints, so also images of those saints have their names written on them, for it is what is written on them [the name] that makes them holy.”

(Discours contre les iconoclastes, Nicéphore de Constantinople, Marie-José Mondzain-Baudinet, trad., Paris, Éditions Klincksieck, III, 54, 1989, pp. 259-260.)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Peter of Kiev

"Let us glorify the Unoriginate Father and His Only-begotten Son, Christ our God, and the All-pure, All-good, Life-creating Spirit. For this is how the faithful glorify the All-holy Name of God and with that Divine Power we are delivered from the visible and invisible enemies in this age and in the age to come."

First Epistle of St. Peter, Metropolitan of Kiev Lives of the Russian Saints, Optina 1993, p. 568

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Hesychius the Presbyter

Truly blessed is the man whose mind and heart are as closely attached to the Jesus Prayer and to the ceaseless invocation of His Name as air to the body or flame to the wax. The sun rising over the earth creates daylight; and the venerable and holy Name of the Lord Jesus, shining continually  in the mind, gives birth to countless intellections radiant as the sun.

St. Hesychius  the Presbyter, On Watchfulness and Holiness, 196.
(The Philokalia, Vol. I, trans. Palmer, et al)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Nicholas Cabasilas

Since the Chrism is the power of the Altar, it was necessary that the matter subject to it should be appropriate. Thus, I think, it would be more efficacious, just as also fire and light act through fitting bodies. For, since the very Name of our Saviour, which, when invoked, could do all things, did not manifest its power in the same way in the mouths of all men, so the consecrator, as he seeks whatever body might be fitting to subject to the Chrism, has found nothing more suitable than the bones of Martyrs.

St. Nicholas Cabasilas, On Life in Christ, Book 5.
(St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1997)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain

"Brethren, the reason I composed these prayers dedicated to our Lord Jesus Christ was none other than to motivate you to continuously meditate upon and repeat the salvific, most sweet, and joy-producing Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the bringer of all good things. You should not simply repeat it with your mouth, but also with your heart and your mind, for this continual repetition of the saving Name of Jesus — in addition to the other heavenly, supernatural, and  inexpressible spiritual gifts which it will grant to you, as St. Callistos Xanthopoulos, St. Gregory of Sinai, and St. Symeon the New Theologian all speak about in the book called the Philokalia — will also raise you to the highest virtue, that of divine love, and it will fashion your heart into a temple and a dwelling place of that Holy Name, both in this life and after death."

St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain
Prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ

(Fr. Georgre Dokos tr. 2010)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Irenaeus of Lyons

“But ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God."(1 Cor. 6:11) He [the Apostle] shows in the clearest manner through what things it is that man goes to destruction, if he has continued to live after the flesh; and then, on the other hand, [he points out] through what things he is saved. Now he says that the things which save are the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God.

Against Heresies, Book 5, 11, 1.

(Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1 , Philip Schaff Ed.)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

Let us remember that at God’s Judgement, we will be required to give account for every idle word. So the more fearful is to give account for the words spoken against the fundamental dogma of the Christian Faith. The teaching concerning the Divine Power of the Name of Jesus, is a fundamental dogma [of our Faith] and is numbered among its holy dogmas. Disdainful, blasphemous opinions against the Prayer of Jesus have all the symptoms of a heretical thinking.

On Prayer of Jesus, Conversation of an Elder with his Disciple,
Ascetical Experiences, Vol. II (Russian ed. Jordanville, 1985)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: SS. Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos

The gift and the advent of the Holy Spirit is given to the faithful from God the Father through Jesus Christ and His Holy Name.

Directions to Hesychasts, 12, Philokakia, Vol. 4 (tr. Palmer et al)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. John of Tobolsk

The chosen ones of God greatly desire that the Name of God, His Wisdom, Power, Mercy and Truth be venerated in holiness by all the nations and tribes, that all the peoples (as creatures of one God) should live in peace and concord.

St. John of Tobolsk, "In Accordance with the Divine Will," Chapter 4.

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Cyril of Alexandria

By the holy prophets therefore the Saviour and Lord of all is called, "He that cometh." For the prophet David in a psalm declares: "Blessed be He That cometh in the Name of the Lord." And what means that expression "in the Name of the Lord?" it means in Godlike glory, and lordship, and all transcending majesty. And this again he has signified in what follows: "The Lord is God, and hath shone forth upon us." For Moses indeed came, and appeared in his season, and by his instrumentality the law was spoken to the Israelites: and then after him Jesus the son of Navi commanded the host, and then in order the blessed prophets. And they were indeed holy men, honourable beyond comparison, and endowed with a spiritual and all-excelling splendour: but no one of them shone forth upon the inhabitants of earth in the Name of the Lord, in the glory that is of Godhead and dominion. But the only-begotten Word of God shone forth upon us as being in His nature and verily God and Lord.

Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, Homily 37

(Robert Payne-Smith ed. 1859)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

"The Name of the Lord is above every name. It is the fountain of sweetness, fountain of joy, fountain of life; it is spirit; it vivifies, transforms, refines, deifies."

On the Prayer of Jesus, Ascetical Experiences, Vol. II, p 252 (Russian ed. Jordanville, 1985)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. John of Damascus

Either do away with the veneration and worship due to all these things [i.e Holy Places, Holy Gospel, etc.], or submit to the tradition of the Church and allow the worship of icons, which are sanctified by the Name of God and of His friends, and for this reason are overshadowed by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

St. John of Damascus,
Against those who decry the veneration

of the Holy Icons, Book I, XVI.

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Hesychius the Presbyter

We write of what we know; and for those who want to understand what we say, we bear witness to all that we have seen as we journeyed on our path. He Himself has declared: ‘If a man not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch; and men gather it, and cast it into the fire, and it is burned. If he abides in Me, I abide in him (cf. John 15:5-6). The sun cannot shine without light; nor can the heart be cleansed of the stain of destructive thoughts without invoking in prayer the Name of Jesus. This being the case, we should use that Name as we do our own breath. For that Name is light, while the evil thoughts are darkness, it is God and Master, while evil thoughts are slaves and demons.

St. Hesychius  the Presbyter, On Watchfulness and Holiness, 170. (The Philokalia, Vol. I, trans. Palmer, et al)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. John Chrysostom

For we have, we surely have, spiritual charms, even the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Power of the Cross. This charm will not only bring the serpent out of his lurking places, and cast him into the fire (Acts 28:5), but even wounds it healeth. But if some that have said this Name have not been healed, it came of their own little faith, and was not owing to any weakness in what they said. For some did throng Jesus and press Him (Luke 8:44-45), and got no good therefrom. But the woman with an issue, without even touching His Body, but merely the hem of His garment, stanched a flux of blood of so long standing. This Name is fearful alike to devils, and to passions, and to diseases. In this then let us find a pleasure, herewith let us fortify ourselves. It was thus Paul waxed great, and yet he was of the like nature with ourselves, so the whole choir of the disciples.

Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Homily VIII
(Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. XI)

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Irenaeus of Lyons

And when they were near to the land, which God had promised to Abraham and his seed, Moses chose a man from every tribe, and sent them to search out the land and the cities therein and the dwellers in the cities. At that time God revealed to him the Name which alone is able to save them that believe thereon; and Moses changed the name of Ausses the son of Navi, one of them that were sent, and named him Jesus; and so he sent them forth with the power of the Name, believing that he should receive them back safe and sound through the guidance of the Name, which came to pass.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Proof of Apostolic Teaching, Ch. 27

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Clement of Rome

Abominable men and full of all wickedness were inflamed to such a degree of wrath that they cast into tortures those who, with a holy and a blameless purpose, served God, not knowing that the Most High is a champion and shield of those who with a pure conscience offer adoration* to His Most Holy Name, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

St. Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 45

* ‘λατρευοντων’ from ‘λατρεία’ - absolute worship, which is due only to God.

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Maximus the Confessor

Besides the already-mentioned modes of operation, the Holy Spirit is present in everyone, who through faith have inherited the truly divine and deifying Name of Christ.

St. Maximus the Confessor, To Thalassius, 15.

Holy Fathers on the Name of God: St. Cyril of Alexandria

"He saith, then: 'Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, even as We are.' He desires His disciples to be kept by the power and might of the Ineffable Divine Nature, well and suitably attributing the power of saving whomsoever He will, yea, and with ease, to the true and living God."

"He says: 'Keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me.' Note how guarded the saying is. For allotting and attributing as suitable only to the Nature of God providential care over us, He declares at once that to Himself has been given the glory of Godhead, because of the form of manhood, saying that what was His by natural right was given to Him; that is, the Name which is above every name. Therefore also we say that this Name belongs to the Son by nature, as proceeding from the Father."

"...['Keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me'] He says that His disciples ought to be kept in the Name of the Father, that is to say, in the glory and power of His Godhead, so that they should be out of the power of the enemy..."

Commentary on the Gospel of St. John (17:11)

Book XI, 11, 12, 16