Having entered the Christmas season, we ask those who find the work of the Mystagogy Resource Center beneficial to them to help us continue our work with a generous financial gift as you are able. As an incentive, we are offering the following booklet.

In 1909 the German philosopher Arthur Drews wrote a book called "The Myth of Christ", which New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman has called "arguably the most influential mythicist book ever produced," arguing that Jesus Christ never existed and was simply a myth influenced by more ancient myths. The reason this book was so influential was because Vladimir Lenin read it and was convinced that Jesus never existed, thus justifying his actions in promoting atheism and suppressing the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union. Moreover, the ideologues of the Third Reich would go on to implement the views of Drews to create a new "Aryan religion," viewing Jesus as an Aryan figure fighting against Jewish materialism. 

Due to the tremendous influence of this book in his time, George Florovsky viewed the arguments presented therein as very weak and easily refutable, which led him to write a refutation of this text which was published in Russian by the YMCA Press in Paris in 1929. This apologetic brochure titled "Did Christ Live? Historical Evidence of Christ" was one of the first texts of his published to promote his Neopatristic Synthesis, bringing the patristic heritage to modern historical and cultural conditions. With the revival of these views among some in our time, this text is as relevant today as it was when it was written. 

Never before published in English, it is now available for anyone who donates at least $20 to the Mystagogy Resource Center upon request (please specify in your donation that you want the book). Thank you.



April 20, 2020

The Lord's Forty Days of Fasting and Forty Days of Feasting


By Venerable Bede of Jarrow

Our Lord fasted forty days before His bodily death (Matt. 4:2) and feasted forty more with His disciples after His bodily resurrection, appearing to them by many infallible proofs and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3-4). For by fasting He showed in Himself our toil, but by eating and drinking with His disciples He showed His consolation in our midst. While He was fasting he was crying out, as it were, "Take heed lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life" (Lk. 21:34), whereas while he was eating and drinking He was crying out, as it were, "Behold I am with you always even unto the consummation of the age" (Matt. 28:20), and: "But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you" (Jn. 16:22). For as soon as we set our feet upon the way of the Lord we both fast from the vanity of the present world and are cheered with the promise of the world to come, not setting our heart on the life here below, but feeding our heart on the life above.

From On the Temple I.10.


Labels: ,

BECOME A PATREON OR PAYPAL SUBSCRIBER


Patreon!