Saturday, 14 November 2026

Holy Apostle Philip

Saturday of the 24th week after Pentecost

216 days after Pascha · Tone 6 · Red cross (polyeleos typikon symbol) · No Fast (Wine and Oil are Allowed)

Saints commemorated

★ Holy Apostle Philip

He was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and a diligent student of the Law and the Prophets. When he first met Jesus, he followed Him right away and told Nathanael, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote” (John 1) After Christ’s Ascension, Philip was chosen to proclaim the Gospel in Asia (the western province of Asia Minor). He traveled with Bartholomew (commemorated June 11) and his sister Mariamne, all of them joyfully enduring great sufferings and persecutions in the Lord’s service. In Hierapolis in Phrygia, they healed the Governor’s wife of an eye affliction, and she believed in the Lord. The Governor was so infuriated by this that he had Philip crucified upside-down. At the moment he gave up his soul to God, the ground opened, swallowing up a great many pagan priests and the Governor. Many of the surviving pagans, terrified, believed in Christ and were baptized by Bartholomew. Saint Bartholomew went on to preach the Gospel in many places; Mariamne traveled to the Jordan River, where she reposed in peace. Among the Slavic peoples, the Nativity Fast is often called Filipovka since it commences immediately after this feast.

Holy and all-praised apostle Philip

The Holy Apostle Philip was born in the small fishing town of Bethsaida in Galilee, on the same shore of the Sea of Tiberias that gave us Saints Peter, Andrew, and John. He was learned in the Law and the Prophets and looked for the coming of the Messiah. Tradition holds that he was already a disciple of Saint John the Forerunner before our Lord called him. The day after his Baptism in the Jordan, on the way back to Galilee, the Lord Jesus found Philip and said to him, "Follow me" (John 1:43). Philip in turn ran to find his friend Nathanael (Bartholomew) and brought him to the Lord with the celebrated words, "Come and see." From that day Philip was numbered among the Twelve. He is the apostle of whom our Lord asked, before the multiplication of the loaves, "Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?" (John 6:5), and to whom on the eve of the Passion the Lord said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). After Pentecost, Philip preached the Gospel in Galilee, Greece, Parthia, Lydia, Mysia, Syria, and Phrygia. He was accompanied in his apostolic journeys by his sister Mariamne and at times by the apostle Bartholomew. By the power of his preaching and his miracles, including the raising of the dead, he turned many away from idolatry. He came at last to Hierapolis in Phrygia, where the citizens worshipped a great serpent. By his prayer the serpent was destroyed, but the proconsul, enraged at the conversion of his wife, ordered Philip and Bartholomew to be crucified. Philip was crucified head downward and pierced through the heels. From the cross he prayed for his persecutors. An earthquake terrified the city, the people implored mercy, and Bartholomew was taken down alive. Saint Philip yielded his soul to God in the year 81, in the reign of the emperor Domitian. His relics were brought to Hierapolis and afterwards translated to other places. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on 14 November, on the eve of the Nativity Fast which is sometimes called Philip's Fast in his honour.

New martyr Constantine of Hydra

Saint Constantine was born in the latter part of the eighteenth century on the small Greek island of Hydra, into a pious Orthodox family. As a young man he left the island to seek work and travelled to the city of Rhodes, where he found employment in the household of a Turkish official. There, surrounded by Muslims and far from his own people, in a moment of weakness and ambition he denied his Christian faith and embraced Islam, becoming an apostate from Christ. His fall, however, did not bring him peace. The Holy Spirit pricked his conscience day and night, until at last, weeping bitter tears for what he had done, he resolved to atone for his apostasy by martyrdom. In secret he gave alms to Orthodox Christians whom he met, sought out priests for their blessing, and venerated the holy icons. He left Rhodes for Crimea, then for Constantinople, and finally made his way to the Holy Mountain of Athos. At the monastery of Iviron, the venerable elders received his confession, instructed him, and prepared his soul for the contest of martyrdom. With the blessing of the fathers he returned to Rhodes. Putting on Christian dress and openly making the sign of the Cross, he presented himself to the Turkish governor, declared his return to Christ, and threw the Muslim turban from his head. He was subjected to repeated tortures and to entreaties of every kind, but he stood firm in his confession. On 14 November 1800 he was hanged for the name of Christ in the city of Rhodes. The faithful gathered up his relics, which were later returned to his native Hydra. A church dedicated to him at his birthplace preserves his holy relics to this day.

Saint Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica

1296

Saint Gregory was born in Constantinople in the year 1296, the eldest son of the senator Constantine Palamas, a senior dignitary at the court of the emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. The father, a man of deep piety, was known for his prayer even in the midst of imperial business, and on his early death the young Gregory was raised under the protection of the emperor himself. Endowed with great natural gifts, he received an excellent classical and philosophical education and was destined for a brilliant career at court. But, drawn from his youth to prayer and the things of God, he resolved to become a monk, and in 1316, at the age of twenty, withdrew to the Holy Mountain of Athos with two of his brothers, while his mother and sisters likewise embraced the monastic life. He laboured at the monastery of Vatopedi and afterwards at the Great Lavra, devoting himself to the practice of unceasing prayer and to the spiritual training of the hesychasts. When the Turks threatened Athos in 1325 he withdrew to Thessalonica and to a hermitage near Beroea, where he lived in profound stillness, ordained priest about 1326. Returning to the Holy Mountain, he became the chief defender of the hesychast tradition when the philosopher Barlaam of Calabria began to mock the monks who used the Jesus prayer with bodily attentiveness, and to deny the possibility of any real vision of the divine light. In a series of councils held at Constantinople in 1341, 1347, and 1351, Saint Gregory's teaching was upheld and Barlaam and his followers condemned. He defended the distinction between God's transcendent essence, which is unknowable, and his uncreated energies, which truly communicate the divine life to the saints, drawing them into participation in God himself. The light that shone from Christ on Tabor he taught to be this same uncreated divine light, granted in measure to the pure in heart. In 1347 he was consecrated archbishop of Thessalonica, where he laboured with great patience amid civil disorder. In 1354, on a journey to Constantinople, the ship in which he was sailing was captured by Turkish corsairs, and he was held captive for a year, during which he preached fearlessly even to his Muslim captors. He died at Thessalonica on 14 November 1359, with the words "To the heights! To the heights!" upon his lips. He was glorified by the Church in 1368. His memory is celebrated on 14 November and again on the Second Sunday of Great Lent, as a confirmation of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Saints Justinian the emperor and Theodora the empress

565

Saint Justinian, the great Christian emperor of the Romans, was born about the year 482 in the village of Tauresium in Illyricum, of Slavonic stock. Brought to Constantinople by his uncle, the emperor Justin I, he was given a careful Christian and classical education and rose through the imperial offices, succeeding his uncle on the throne in 527 as Justinian I. He reigned until 565, and his reign witnessed an extraordinary flowering of Christian civilisation. He recovered North Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain from the Arian barbarians; he codified Roman law in the great Corpus Juris Civilis, the foundation of the legal life of Christian Europe; and he built innumerable churches, of which the Great Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, is the most glorious. He convoked the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 553, which condemned the Three Chapters and confirmed the doctrine of Saint Cyril of Alexandria. He composed the festal hymn "Only-begotten Son and Word of God" sung at every Divine Liturgy. He reposed in peace in the year 565. Saint Theodora was born about 500 of humble parentage in Constantinople, and led in her youth a wayward life as an actress and entertainer in the public theatre. Brought to repentance, she made her way to Alexandria, where she met holy bishops and ascetics who instructed her in the faith, and from that time onwards she lived a life of ascetic struggle and almsgiving. Returning to Constantinople, she met the future emperor Justinian, who fell deeply in love with her and married her in defiance of court convention. As empress she ruled with him as a true partner, and during the Nika revolt of 532 it was her courage which prevented Justinian from fleeing the throne, with the famous words, "The royal purple is the noblest winding-sheet." She used her position to defend persecuted Christians, to redeem captives, to protect women from exploitation, and to found hospices and monasteries. She died of illness in 548, mourned by the emperor for the rest of his life. The Orthodox Church commemorates Saints Justinian and Theodora together on 14 November as exemplars of imperial repentance and Christian rule.

St Gregory Palamas

1359

The teaching of St Gregory is so fundamental to Orthodoxy that he is especially commemorated each year in Great Lent on the Sunday following the Sunday of Orthodoxy (as well as on Nov. 14); Bishop Kallistos observes in the English edition of the Philokalia, “his successful defence of the divine and uncreated character of the light of Tabor…[is] seen as a direct continuation of the preceding celebration, as nothing less than a renewed Triumph of Orthodoxy.” The son of a prominent family, St Gregory was born (1296) and raised in Constantinople. At about age twenty, he abandoned a promising secular career to become a monk on Mt Athos. (His family joined him en masse: two of his brothers went with him to the Holy Mountain; at the same time his widowed mother, two of his sisters, and many of the household servants also entered monastic life.) He spent the next twenty years living as a hermit, spending five days a week in complete solitude, then joining the brethren on weekends for the Divine Liturgy and its accompanying services. Around 1335 he was called to live a much more public life in defense of the faith and spirituality of the Church. A Greek living in Italy, Barlaam the Calabrian, had launched an attack on the hesychastic spirituality of the Church. Fundamentally, Barlaam denied that man can attain to a true vision of God Himself, or true union with Him, in this life. Gregory, recognizing in this an attack on the Christian faith itself, responded. He even left the Holy Mountain and re-settled in Constantinople so as better to wage the struggle, which had become so public that a Church Council was called to settle the issue. St Gregory’s views were affirmed, and Barlaam’s condemned, at the Council of Constantinople of 1341. Though Barlaam himself returned to Italy, a series of his followers continued the attack, eventually resulting in two more Councils in 1347 and 1351, both of which affirmed the hesychasts’ position. Metropolitan Hierotheos (The Mind of the Orthodox Church) writes that these councils have “all the marks of an Ecumenical Council.” This, along with the fact that St Gregory’s views are affirmed in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy (appointed to be read in churches every Sunday of Orthodoxy), and his commemoration every second Sunday of Great Lent, makes clear that his teaching is a basic and indispensable part of the Orthodox Faith. In 1347 St Gregory was consecrated Metropolitan of Thessaloniki, where he served until his repose. (He spent a year of this period as the prisoner of Turkish pirates). Despite (or due to?) his austere monastic background, he was revered by his flock: immediately after his repose in 1359, popular veneration of him sprang up in Thessaloniki, Constantinople and Mt Athos and, in 1368, only nine years after his death, the Church officially glorified him as a saint. St Gregory was always clear that unceasing mental prayer is not a special calling of monastics, but is possible and desirable for every Christian in every walk of life. See his On the Necessity of Constant Prayer for all Christians, reproduced on this site.

Pious Emperor Justinian and His Wife Theodora

565

“The pious Emperor Justinian was a fervent Christian and a man of genius in every field. His long reign (527-65) was a decisive period in the history of the Empire from the administrative, diplomatic, military, economic, legal, cultural and ecclesiastical points of view. He was the real founder of the Christian Empire, who brought together again the old Roman Empire that had been torn to pieces by barbarian invaders. He believed that upholding the Orthodox faith and maintaining the symphony of Church and State were essential for the well-being of the Empire. He had a deep knowledge of theology and wrote several treatises on dogmas of the faith. He forbad pagan worship in the Empire, and was unremitting in pursuit of heretics and sectarians. He did all he could to reconcile the Monophysites to the Council of Chalcedon. In 553, he summoned to Constantinople the fifth Ecumentical Council (25 July), which reaffirmed the condemnation of Nestorius and also condemned Origen. “The splendor of the churches and of everything that testified to the divine glory was brought to a culmination in the Empire of Justinian. He rebuilt the Great Church of Saint Sophia in Constantinople where, it was said, the service of God was so wonderfully ordered that it was as if heaven had come down to earth. He made great gifts to the monasteries of Egypt and of Palestine and built the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. In all that he did, he had the help and support of his wife, the pious Empress Theodora. Justinian died on 14 November 565, without having been able to restore full unity to the Church, but he had set the Empire on firm foundations that would endure for centuries.” (Synaxarion) It was Justinian who built the great Church of the Holy Wisdom (Agia Sophia), perhaps the most magnificent Christian church. The hymn “Only-begotten Son” was inserted in the Divine Liturgy at his command, and is thought to have been composed by him. Note: There is some controversy about the inclusion of Justinian in the Synaxaria. His fervent labors to reconcile the Monophysites to the Church have led some writers to conclude that he himself embraced Monophysite errors; others dispute this. Lacking the wisdom to resolve the question, we only note that he is included in Ormylia Monastery’s Synaxarion (quoted above), but some Synaxaria have turned his commemoration into that of the Emperor Justin (518-527).

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

2 Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 11.1-6

¹Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. ²For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. ³But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. ⁴For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. ⁵For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. ⁶But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 9.37-43

³⁷And it came to pass, that on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met him. ³⁸And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child. ³⁹And, lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him. ⁴⁰And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not. ⁴¹And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither. ⁴²And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father.

⁴³And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God. But while they wondered every one at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples,

Vespers

1 Peter — 1 Peter 1.1-2.6

¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: ⁷That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: ⁸Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: ⁹Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. ¹⁰Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: ¹¹Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. ¹²Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. ¹³Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; ¹⁴As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: ¹⁵But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; ¹⁶Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. ¹⁷And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: ¹⁸Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; ¹⁹But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: ²⁰Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, ²¹Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. ²²Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: ²³Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. ²⁴For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: ²⁵But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

¹Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, ²As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: ³If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. ⁴To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ⁵Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. ⁶Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

Vespers

1 Peter — 1 Peter 2.21-3.9

²¹For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: ²²Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: ²³Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: ²⁴Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. ²⁵For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

¹Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; ²While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. ³Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; ⁴But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. ⁵For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: ⁶Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. ⁷Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. ⁸Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: ⁹Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.

Vespers

1 Peter — 1 Peter 4.1-11

¹Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; ²That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. ³For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: ⁴Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: ⁵Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. ⁶For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

⁷But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. ⁸And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. ⁹Use hospitality one to another without grudging. ¹⁰As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. ¹¹If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Matins Gospel

John — John 21.15-25

¹⁵So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. ¹⁶He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. ¹⁷He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. ¹⁹This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. ²⁰Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? ²¹Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? ²²Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. ²³Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? ²⁴This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. ²⁵And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Epistle

— St Philip

1 Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 4.9-16

⁹For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. ¹⁰We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. ¹¹Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace; ¹²And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: ¹³Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. ¹⁴I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. ¹⁵For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. ¹⁶Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.

Gospel

— St Philip

John — John 1.43-51

⁴³The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. ⁴⁴Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. ⁴⁶And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. ⁴⁷Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! ⁴⁸Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. ⁴⁹Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. ⁵⁰Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. ⁵¹And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.