Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

“But you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, house of Israel: Is my way not right? Is your way right? When the righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits a transgression, then he shall die by it. He shall die by the transgression which he committed. But when a lawless person turns from his lawlessness which he committed, and he does justice and righteousness, this one has kept his life. And he has turned away from all his ungodliness which he did, he will surely live. He should certainly not die. But the house of Israel say: ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Is my way not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your way that is not right? I will judge you each according to his way, O house of Israel,” says the Lord. “Turn around, and turn away from all your impious acts, and they will not become a punishment of injustice for you. Throw away from yourselves all your impious acts by ⌊which⌋ you were impious to me, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel? Because I do not desire the death of the dying,” says the Lord. (Ezekiel 18:25–32 LXX)

If, then, any hope of salvation is still left to you, if any slight remembrance of God, if any desire for future rewards, if any fear of the punishments reserved for the unrepentant, come back quickly to sobriety; raise your eyes to the heavens; return to your senses; cease your wickedness; shake off the drunkenness that has drenched you; stand up against him who has overthrown you. Have the strength to rise up from the earth. Remember the Good Shepherd, how He will pursue and deliver you. And if there be but “two legs, or the tip of an ear,” leap back from him who has wounded you. Remember the compassion of God, how He heals with olive oil and wine. Do not despair of salvation. Recall the memory of what has been written, how he that falls rises again, and he that is turned away turns again, he that has been smitten is healed, he that is caught by wild beasts escapes, and he that confesses is not rejected. The Lord does not wish the death of the sinner, but that he return and live. Be not contemptuous as one who has fallen into the depths of sins.

There is still time for patience, time for forbearance, time for healing, time for amendment. Have you slipped? Rise up. Have you sinned? Cease. Do not stand in the way of sinners, but turn aside; for then you will be saved when turning back you bewail your sins. In fact, from labors there is health; from sweat, salvation. So take heed, lest, in wishing to keep your contracts with others, you transgress your covenants with God which you confessed before many witnesses. Do not, therefore, because of certain human considerations, hesitate to come to me. For, receiving my dead, I shall lament; I shall care for him; “I shall weep bitterly for the devastation of the daughter of my people.” All welcome you; all will aid you in your sufferings. Do not lose heart; be mindful of the days of old. There is salvation; there is amendment. Have courage; do not despair. There is no law which passes sentence of death without pity, but grace, exceeding the chastisement, awaits the amendment. Not yet have the doors been closed; the Bridegroom listens; sin is not the master. Again take up the struggle; do not draw back, but pity yourself and all of us in Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be glory and might, now and forever, for ages of ages. Amen.

Basil of Caesarea, Letter 44

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Seek out the Lord, and when you find Him, call upon Him.
And if ever He approaches you,
Let the ungodly abandon his ways,
And the man of lawlessness his counsels,
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will be shown mercy,
Because He will forgive your sins abundantly.
“For My counsels are not like your counsels,
Or My ways like your ways,” says the Lord,
“But as the heaven is far off from the earth,
So My way is far off from your ways,
And your thoughts from My mind.” (Isaiah 55:6–9 LXX)

[W]e can very clearly perceive that God brings salvation to mankind in diverse and innumerable methods and inscrutable ways, and that He stirs up the course of some, who are already wanting it, and thirsting for it, to greater zeal, while He forces some even against their will, and resisting. And that at one time He gives his assistance for the fulfillment of those things which he sees that we desire for our good, while at another time He puts into us the very beginnings of holy desire, and grants both the commencement of a good work and perseverance in it. Hence it comes that in our prayers we proclaim God as not only our Protector and Savior, but actually as our Helper and Sponsor. For whereas He first calls us to Him, and while we are still ignorant and unwilling, draws us towards salvation, He is our Protector and Savior, but whereas when we are already striving, He is wont to bring us help, and to receive and defend those who fly to Him for refuge, He is termed our Sponsor and Refuge. Finally the blessed Apostle when revolving in his mind this manifold bounty of God’s providence, as he sees that he has fallen into some vast and boundless ocean of God’s goodness, exclaims: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are the judgments of God and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord?” Whoever then imagines that he can by human reason fathom the depths of that inconceivable abyss, will be trying to explain away the astonishment at that knowledge, at which that great and mighty teacher of the Gentiles was awed. For if a man thinks that he can either conceive in his mind or discuss exhaustively the dispensation of God whereby He works salvation in men, he certainly impugns the truth of the Apostle’s words and asserts with profane audacity that His judgments can be scrutinized, and His ways searched out. This providence and love of God therefore, which the Lord in His unwearied goodness vouchsafes to show us, He compares to the tenderest heart of a kind mother, as He wishes to express it by a figure of human affection, and finds in His creatures no such feeling of love, to which he could better compare it. And He uses this example, because nothing dearer can be found in human nature, saying: “Can a mother forget her child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” But not content with this comparison He at once goes beyond it, and subjoins these words: “And though she may forget, yet will not I forget you.”

John Cassian, Conference 13.17

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” (Matthew 18:21–35)

Now the servants alone are the stewards of the Word, but the king, making a reckoning with the servants, demands from those who have borrowed from the servants, whether a hundred measures of wheat or a hundred measures of oil, or whatever in point of fact those who are outside of the household of the king have received; for he who owed the hundred measures of wheat or the hundred measures of oil is not found to be, according to the parable, a fellow-servant of the unjust steward, as is evident from the question—how much owest thou to my lord? But mark with me that each deed which is good or seemly is like a gain and an increment, but a wicked deed is like a loss; and as there is a certain gain when the money is greater and another when it is less, and as there are differences of more or less, so according to the good deeds, there is as it were a valuing of gains more or less. To reckon what work is a great gain, and what a less gain, and what a least, is the prerogative of him who alone knows to investigate such things, looking at them in the light of the disposition, and the word, and the deed, and from consideration of the things which are not in our power cooperating with those that are; and so also in the case of things opposite, it is his to say what sin, when a reckoning is made with the servants, is found to be a great loss, and what is less, and what, if we may so call it, is the loss of the very last mite, or the last farthing. The account, therefore, of the entire and whole life is exacted by that which is called the kingdom of heaven which is likened to a king, when “we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he hath done, whether good or bad;” and then when the reckoning is being made, shall there be brought into the reckoning that is made also every idle word that men shall speak, and any cup of cold water only which one has given to drink in the name of a disciple.

Origen, Commentary on Matthew 14.8

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. (Matthew 18:1–9)

Here the Lord not only repressed the apostles’ thoughts but also checked the ambition of believers throughout the whole world, so that he might be great who wanted to be least. For with this purpose Jesus used the example of the child, that what he had been through his nature, we through our holy living might become—innocent, like children innocent of every sin. For a child does not know how to hold resentment or to grow angry. He does not know how to repay evil for evil. He does not think base thoughts. He does not commit adultery or arson or murder. He is utterly ignorant of theft or brawling or all the things that will draw him to sin. He does not know how to disparage, how to blaspheme, how to hurt, how to lie. He believes what he hears. What he is ordered he does not analyze. He loves his parents with full affection. Therefore what children are in their simplicity, let us become through a holy way of life, as children innocent of sin. And quite rightly, one who has become a child innocent of sin in this way is greater in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives such a person will receive Christ.

Epiphanius the Latin, Interpretation of the Gospels 27

The humility of Christ’s Passion is a stumbling block to the world. Human ignorance is contained especially in this statement: that it will not accept the Lord of eternal glory in light of the ugliness of the cross. What else in the world is as dangerous as not receiving Christ?

Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew 18.2

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

O Lord, remember me and visit me, and hold me guiltless before those who pursue me, not for forbearance. Know how I received reproach concerning you by those who reject your words. Make an end of them, and your word shall be to me as merriment and delight to my heart, because your name has been invoked upon me, O Lord Almighty. I did not sit in the assembly of those who mock, but I was reverent at the presence of your hand. I was seated by myself because I was filled with bitterness. Why do those who grieve me prevail over me? My wound is severe. How will I be healed? When it came, it came to me like false water without faith. Because of this, this is what the Lord says: “If you return, then I will restore you, and you will stand before my presence. And if you bring out what is valued from the worthy, you will serve as my mouth. And they will turn to you, and you will not turn to them. And I will give you to this people as a fortified bronze wall, and they will fight against you, and they will not prevail against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from the hand of evildoers, and to redeem you from the hand of the plague.” (Jeremiah 15:15–21 LXX)

The wonderful Apostles who were insulted many times for the truth say, I am content with weaknesses, with insults and hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Christ. I know that the basis of hardships is Christ when I am insulted if I know that I am insulted only for nothing other than for Christ, when I am in hardships, when I am abused if I know that the cause of abuse is none other than that I am a champion for truth and an ambassador for the Scriptures so that everything happens according to the Word of God. For this I am blasphemed.

And thus let all of us, as far as our ability allows, strive for the prophetic life, for the apostolic life, not avoiding what is troublesome. For if the athlete avoids what is troublesome about the contest, the sweetness of the crown will never be his.

Whenever there may be a great number of sinners and they do not forbear the righteous living righteously, there is nothing improper in avoiding the council of evil to imitate the one who said, I have sat alone, to imitate also Elijah who said, Lord, they have killed your Prophets, they have pulled down your altars, and I was left alone, and they seek my life to take it.

But perhaps if you examine more deeply the words, I sat alone, you will find a kind of sense worthy of the prophetic depth. Whenever we imitate the life of the masses so that it has not been set off and is not greater and more special than the masses, I cannot say, I have sat alone, but I sat with the masses. But when my life becomes hard to imitate so that I become so great that no one resembles my habits, my doctrine, my practices, my wisdom, then I can say, because I am one of a kind and no one imitates me, I sat alone. Thus it happens also that you who are not a presbyter, you who are not a bishop, nor a person honored by some ecclesiastical title can say this, I sat alone. You can strive after and adopt a life so as to say, I sat alone.

Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah 14.14.4–5; 16.1–2