Ioan Exarch Week Day 7

I hope you've enjoyed Ioan Exarch Week as much as I have!  Here's the last one.  Tomorrow we start Photius week.

"The soul is immortal.  It is endowed with reason and understanding and has no form.  The flesh is the soul's organ and receives from her the ability to grow, feel, and reproduce.  The faculty of reason is not separate from her but constitutes the purest part of the soul.  As the eye is to the flesh, so reason is to the soul.  It is its own keeper possessing the ability to desire and to act.  The soul is changeable, that is to say, its will is subject to mutability.  It was created, and received all those gifts in accordance with her nature from her Creator, Who also made her the receptacle of His grace."

-On the Orthodox Faith

Ioan Exarch Week Day 6

"And so, it does not matter whether we accept that the earth rests upon itself, or upon the air, or upon the waters, or upon nothing at all, as long as we remain true to the dictates of pious reason and as long as we believe that all things are held together and supported by their Makers might."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 5

"Why does God not create in the manner of the men who do mason work or make ships, or in the manner of the coppersmiths, or the goldsmiths, or any of the other craftsmen? The men collect matter first and then produce whatever ready images they need, and the instruments and tools for their work they get from one another.  But only a thought is sufficient for God to create things which have never existed before.  Nor does He stand in need of anything, whereas the arts of man need one another."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 4

"The years and all seasons follow one another.  The days and nights keep this order in accordance with the same law; they are not filled with pride when they get longer, nor do they grow sad when they get shorter, but they take time one from the other and give it back again without any delay."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 3

"For, as the scripture says, 'blood is the soul of every beast,' and blood, when it thickens, turns to flesh, flesh when it decays, becomes earth, so that the beast's soul is properly of the earth.  Hence, 'let the earth bring forth living creatures.' Consider the tie linking the beast's soul with blood, blood with flesh, and flesh with earth."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 2

"Some things were created to serve man, others to help him contemplate the wonders of the Creation, and still others to put fear into our hearts and to punish us for our weakness.  'And God created great whales.'" They are called 'great' not because they are bigger than the pike or the perch, but because in size they are like great mountains, and when they come out and swim on the surface of the sea, they are taken for islands.  As they are so big, the whales cannot be found near the coast, but they inhabit the expanse of the atlantic sea.  These creatures were made to fill us with fear and terror."

-Hexameron

For more on this subject...

Ioan Exarch Week Day 1

"The sun and moon eclipse each other, thus exposing the folly of those who worship the Creation and not the Creator, and also showing us that they are subject to change and mutability.  And what is mutable cannot be divine, for all changeable things are, by their very nature, destined for destruction."

-On Light, Fire, and (the Heavenly) Bodies