Gregory Palamas quotes - page 2

The summit of evil, the crime most natural to the devil, pride, was born of knowledge. But if this is so, how can it be possible that all the passions result from ignorance? Does knowledge purify the psyche? Paul says: Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. (Gregory Palamas)
As the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul. And this death of the soul is the true death. View quote
Gregory Palamas
Thanksgiving for the benefits received from God is made acceptable by humility and not looking down on those who lack them. It is rendered unacceptable, however, by being conceited, as if those benefits resulted from our own efforts and knowledge, and by condemning those who have not received them. View quote
Gregory Palamas
Anybody who thinks he is something great, even before God, is rightly abandoned by God, as one who thinks that he does not need His help. View quote
Gregory Palamas
Let us take off our life's complex covering of rapacity and greed, since it is ugly in God's sight and condemned, and let us put on, as the elect of God, compassion, humility, modesty and meekness. View quote
Gregory Palamas
Anyone who states that God should not have made those people who will be punished, is also saying that He should not have made those who will be saved, or any rational and free beings at all. View quote
Gregory Palamas
How can someone have the freedom to choose and the power to act freely, unless he were able to be evil, should he so wish? View quote
Gregory Palamas
The Lord came to send fire upon the earth (cf. Lk. 12:49), and through participation in this fire He makes divine not just the human substance which He assumed for our sake, but every person who is found worthy of communion with Him. View quote
Gregory Palamas
The light of the Lord's transfiguration does not come into being or cease to be, nor is it circumscribed or perceptible to the senses, even though for a short time on the narrow mountain top it was seen by human eyes. View quote
Gregory Palamas
Prayer changes from entreaty to thanksgiving, and meditation on the divine truths of faith fills the heart with a sense of jubilation and unimpeachable hope. This hope is a foretaste of future blessings, of which the soul even now receives direct experience, and so it comes to know in part the surpassing richness of God's bounty, in accordance with the Psalmist's words, 'Taste and know that the Lord is bountiful' (Ps. 34:8). For He is the jubilation of the righteous, the joy of the upright, the gladness of the humble, and the solace of those who grieve because of Him. View quote
Gregory Palamas
'Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father, and to My God, and your God' (Jn. 20:!7). He is our Father by grace through the Spirit of adoption (Rom. 8:15), but His Father by nature on account of His divinity. Similarly, He is our God as the creator of our human nature, but His God by reason of the dispensation whereby He became man. He made these distinctions so that we might understand the difference. (Gregory Palamas)
It is pointless for someone to say that he has faith in God... if he does not have the works which go with that faith. View quote
Gregory Palamas