Monday, December 8, 2025

Oecumenius (10th century) on Revelation 2:17

  

(12) And I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the new name. He is describing their enjoyment of God for ever and their dwelling in good quarters and the bliss, which, he says, they will have in the age to come. The new name, he says, is that which until now has nowhere been heard, which the saints who reign together with Christ will receive, who are named friends, brothers, and servants. But the new name exceeds even these. For these have not only been mentioned in Holy Scripture but have also come into the hearing of men. But the new name is nowhere named. (13) His saying of my God does not imply that God disowns as unworthy the condition of self-emptying or the humility of the humanity. For if he disowned this, who was it who compelled him to be hypostatically united with flesh and thus to weave together our salvation? (14) To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse [trans. John N. Suggit; The Fathers of the Church 112; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006], 4)