Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to “set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law”; and “a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward. (Matt 10:34–42)

When we are renewed in the laver of baptism through the power of the Word, we are separated from the sins that come from our origin and are separated from its authors. Once we have endured a sort of excision by God’s sword, we are cut from the dispositions of our father and mother. Casting off the “old man” with his sins and unbelief, we are renewed in soul and body by the Spirit, rejecting our inborn habits and former ways. Because the body itself has been mortified through faith, it rises to the nature of the soul, which comes from the breath of God (although it still subsists in its own physical form); a communion between the two is brought about by the Word. For this reason, the body begins to desire to be made one and the same with the soul, that is, with what is spiritual. For both, a freedom of the will from its mother-in-law; that is, it is separated from unbelief, and yields all of its own law, with the result that what was freedom of will is later on the power of the soul. The result will be serious dissension in one household, and the “new man’s” enemies will be the members of his household. Now separated from the others by the Word of God, he will rejoice to remain, both inside and outside, that is, both his soul and body, in the newness of the Spirit.

As a result of these inborn qualities and what we might call an antiquity of lineage, they still desire to remain in those things which gave pleasure to them: the origins of their flesh and the origin of their soul and their free will. These will be separated into two, that is, the soul and body of the new man, which have begun to desire to be one and the same. And the three that are separated will be subject to the two, which are stronger under the governance of the newness of the Spirit. Those who have preferred the love of one’s household name instead of God’s love will be unworthy of inheriting the good to come.

Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew 10.24