Here lately I have been going down the rabbit hole of Ethiopic Christianity, particularly the apocrypha texts from that tradition. It has been a fascinating journey and I am only getting started. I am working on a blog entry about the “Lefāfa Ṣedeḳ” but in the meantime, I wanted to post about this text that …
Category Archives: theotokos
Kollyridianism – Marian worship
Back when I did my posts regarding the “Book of Mary’s Repose”, the book that accompanied that text included a long history of the Virgin Mary’s history regarding the dormition tradition. Part of the book mentioned an earlier sect that had even deified Mary. The book did not go into detail, so I didn’t pursue …
The Nativity of Jesus – Expanded Edition
With it being near the time of Christmas, I thought it’d be interesting to see how the story of the Nativity of Jesus plays out in apocrypha texts versus the canonical storyline. Below are the two canonical sources, the first being from the Gospel of Matthew (ESV translation): The Birth of Jesus Christ Now the …
Mary’s Spirit at Dormition
August 15 is the feast day of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. Earlier in my blog, I posted a three part series about one of the earliest dormition stories (which includes various gnostic thought), so please check out that if you haven’t. Links at the end. With this post, I wanted to focus on …
Axion Estin
Axion Estin, or it’s translation meaning “It is truly meet”, is the name of a Eastern Orthodox magnification and hymn to the Theotokos (Virgin Mary). It also refers to an icon of the same name. Below is a reading of the hymn (sorry, you don’t want to hear my singing voice, LOL) that I did …
Our Lady of Montserrat
I mentioned before about my visits to the Saint Meinrad Archabbey and encountering the Lady of Einsiedeln. Well, with the school out of session for the summer, I’ve been exploring more of the monastery and first off, there is a second statue of Einsiedeln at the entrance to another chapel on the grounds. This copy …
3 short video clips
Out of the recent recordings I did, I thought I’d edit three segments together. The first segment is an excerpt from the Gospel of Thomas, the second segment is the oldest known prayer to the Theotokos and the third segment is an excerpt from the First Apocalypse of James. First segment, Gospel of Thomas saying …
The Book of Mary’s Repose (3 of 3)
And now the conclusion of the Liber Requiei. The man who’s arms were cut off, wept to the apostles and begged them not to give him such torment. Peter informs him that he can not heal the wounds but rather the man would need to believe in Jesus. Peter orders the bier to be put …
The Book of Mary’s Repose (2 of 3)
And the story continues….. After Jesus ascended back into the heavens, Mary returned home. Entering the house, it began to tremble on the account of the glory of the book that Jesus had given her. She wrapped up the book and said various prayers over it. Her prayers eventually lead back to her son, who …
The Book of Mary’s Repose (1 of 3)
I have read some oddball apocrypha texts but this may be one of the strangest. Being quite fond of the Theotokos, I’ve been tracking down some apocrypha relating to her as of late. While watching the below video, it mentioned a text that included Gnostic elements! I have time stamped the video, so check it …
Culmination of Wisdom 