SETH, PATRIARCH - 1 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH 

Saints celebrated on the 1st of March

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SETH, PATRIARCH 

According to the Rabbinic traditions, Seth was one of the thirteen who came circumcised into the world. The rest were Adam, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Terah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.

HE HAD INHERITED MUCH OF THE LOVELINESS OF UNFALLEN MAN

The Little Genesis says, that Seth was instructed by the angels in what was to take place in the world; how its iniquity was to grow, and a flood was to overwhelm it; and how the Messiah would come and restore all things. Seth was remarkable for the majesty and beauty of his appearance, as he had inherited much of the loveliness of unfallen man.

Theodoret thus refers to the verse, “And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos; then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.” 

HE WROTE DOWN ALL THE SCIENCE HE HAD ACQUIRED

Flavius Josephus relates that after the things that were to take place had been revealed to Seth, - how the earth was to be destroyed, first with water and then with fire, - lest those things which he had discovered should perish from the memory of his posterity, he set up two pillars, one of brick, the other of stone, and he wrote thereon all the science he had acquired, hoping that, in the event of the brick pillar perishing by the rain, the stone would endure.

The stone pillar was to be seen, in the time of Josephus, in Syria.

A SON IN HIS OWN LIKENESS

Anastasius of Sinai says that, when God created Adam after His image and likeness, He breathed into him grace, and illumination, and a ray of the Holy Spirit. But when he sinned, this glory left him, and his face became clouded. Then he became the father of Cain and Abel. But afterwards it is said in Scripture, “He begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth;” which is not said of Cain and Abel; and this means that Seth was begotten in the likeness of unfallen man and after the image of Adam in Paradise; and he called his name Seth, that is, by interpretation, Resurrection, because in him he saw the resurrection of his departed beauty, and wisdom and glory, and radiance of the Holy Spirit. 

 (Excerpts from: Sabine Baring-Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets)