Patristic Wisdom: Looking to Reformation Sunday

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. (John 8:31–36)

Obscure as yet and not wholly clear is the word, none the less it is replete with force akin to those before it, and though after other fashion wrought will go through the same reflections. For it too persuades those who have once believed gladly to depart and remove from the worship according to the law, instructing that the shadow is our guide to the knowledge of Him, and that leaving the types and figures, we should go resolutely forward to the Truth Itself, i. e., Christ the Giver of true freedom and the Redeemer. Ye shall know therefore (He says) the Truth, if ye abide in My Words, and from knowing the Truth ye shall find the profit that is therefrom. Take then our Lord as saying some such thing as this to the Jews (for we ought I think to enlarge our meditation on what is now before us, for the profit’s sake of the readers): A bitter bondage in Egypt, (He says) ye endured, and lengthened toil consumed you who had come into bitter serfdom under Pharaoh, but ye cried then to God, and ye have moved Him to mercy towards you, bewailing the misfortunes which were upon you ye were seeking a Redeemer from Heaven: forthwith I visited you even then, and brought you forth from a strange land, liberating you from most savage oppression I was inviting you unto freedom. But that ye might learn who is your aider and Redeemer, I was limning for you the mystery of Myself in the sacrifice of the sheep, and bidding it then to prefigure the salvation through blood: for ye were saved by anointing both yourselves and the doorposts with the blood of the lamb. Hence by advancing a little forth from the types, when ye learn the Truth, ye shall be wholly and truly free. And let none (He says) doubt about this. For if the type was then to you the bestower of so great goods, how does not the Truth rather give you richer grace?

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John 5.5.32

This is what he means: The subject of what I am talking about is not corporeal bondage. I want to talk to you about real freedom. In one instance a master, at his discretion, drives away from the house a servant in whom he sees an evil will and subjects him to any punishment he considers to be appropriate. But… no master drives away his son from the house. So, one who is a slave to sin, since he is far removed from all divine goodness, is given a perpetual punishment. But the one who has been made worthy of freedom and has been given the status of son always enjoys divine goodness and can never be removed from it. If you, he says, are freed through me and are made worthy of the title of sons, then you will possess real freedom.

Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on John 3.8.34–36

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way. (Matthew 22:15–22)

Where did [the Pharisees] go? To the Herodians. For he did not say, “they advised” but “they took counsel.” And from the time when they came together with the Herodians, it appears that they mulled over with them a counsel of entrapment of this kind. A farmer does not need the help of that person whose land he possesses. Whoever has righteousness needs the support of nobody except God. He who walks in the iniquities of the devil needs the help of the devil. For a farmer of God does not seek after the aid of the devil, but a farmer of the devil does not find the aid of God, even if he asks for it. Did you ever see a thief ask of God that he succeed in his thievery? Or did one going to fornication place the sign of the cross in his forehead so that he would not be arrested for his crime? But if he did it, not only is he not helped, but he still further is betrayed because the righteousness of God does not know how to give support to misdeeds. So also those who desired to assault Christ quite appropriately did not hasten to the servants of God (that is, religious people) but to the Gentiles (that is, to the Herodians).

The conspiracy matched the conspirators. But who could give counsel against Christ except for the devil, who was the adversary of Christ? For the priests thought to themselves, “If we alone went and asked Christ, even if Christ said that it is not right to pay tribute to Caesar, nonetheless nobody will believe us when we speak against him, for already everybody knows that we are his enemy. But the testimony of enemies is rejected at a trial as suspect, even if it is true.” But they did not want to ask Christ by themselves because they were greatly suspected of hostility against Christ, lest by chance they be suspected of laying a trap for him and not be able to do so. For a manifest enemy is better than a pretend friend. As long as the enemy is feared, he is easily avoided, but as long as the pretend friend is not recognized, he prevails. Therefore, they sent their disciples to him,since they were less well known and less suspected, so that they might easily deceive him in a hidden manner or, if they were caught, they might be less embarrassed in front of him.…

But Jesus, aware of their malice, did not answer calmly in line with their speech but spoke harshly in line with their cruel conscience because God speaks more to the soul than to the body and replies to wills, not words. “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the money for the tax.” And they brought him a coin. He said to them, “hypocrites,” so that they could find in their heart among themselves what they heard in the ear so that they would consider that he knew the human heart and so they would not dare to complete what they were contemplating to do. Therefore, see that the Pharisees indeed flattered him in order to destroy him, but Jesus routed them in order to save them, because an angry God is more useful for a human being than an appeased human being is.

Incomplete Commentary on Matthew, Homily 42

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:1–14)

And so he sent his servants to invite his friends to the marriage feast. He sent once, and he sent again, because first he made the prophets, and later the apostles, preachers of the Lord’s incarnation. He sent his servants twice with the invitation, because he said through the prophets that his only Son’s incarnation would come about, and he proclaimed through the apostles that it had. Because those who were first invited to the marriage banquet refused to come, he said in his second invitation: See, I have prepared my meal; my oxen and fatlings have been slain, and everything is ready. What do we take the oxen and fatlings to be but the fathers of the Old and New Testaments? Since I am speaking to everyone, I must also explain these words of the gospel reading. We call animals fatlings when they are well fed; fatlings have been fattened up.

It was written in the Law, You shall love your friend and hate your enemy. At that time permission was granted to the righteous to put down the enemies of God and their own with as much strength as they had, and to strike them down with the power of life and death. There is no doubt that this is forbidden in the New Testament: Truth himself tells us, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. What then do the oxen represent but the fathers of the Old Testament? When the Law consented to their killing their adversaries in return for their hatred, if I may say so, what else were they but oxen striking down their enemies with the horn of their physical strength? And what do the fatlings signify but the fathers of the New Testament? When they receive the gift of inner fatness, they flee their earthly desires and are raised to the heights on the wings of their contemplation. What else is having your thoughts on low things but a kind of mental leanness? But there are those who through their understanding of heavenly things are now being nourished by their holy desire for the things of heaven. Receiving the food of inner delight, they are being fattened, so to speak, with a more abundant sustenance. The psalmist was longing to be well-fed with this fatness when he said: May my soul be filled as with marrow and fat!

Because the preachers sent to proclaim the Lord’s incarnation, first the prophets and later the holy apostles, endured the persecution of unbelievers, it was said to those who were invited but refused to come, My oxen and fatlings have been slain, and everything is ready, meaning, ‘Reflect on the deaths of the fathers who went before you, and think about correcting your lives.’ We should note that in the first invitation nothing was said about oxen and fatlings, but in the second they are said to be already slaughtered. When we refuse to listen to his words, almighty God adds examples, so that we may more easily hope for everything we believe to be impossible, the more that we hear that others have already accomplished it.

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But since you have already come into the house of the marriage feast, our holy Church, as a result of God’s generosity, be careful, my friends, lest when the King enters he find fault with some aspect of your heart’s clothing. We must consider what comes next with great fear in our hearts: But the king came in to look at the guests, and saw there a person not clothed in a wedding garment.

What do we think is meant by the wedding garment, dearly beloved? For if we say it is baptism or faith, is there anyone who has entered this marriage feast without them? A person is outside because he has not yet come to believe. What then must we understand by the wedding garment but love? That person enters the marriage feast, but without wearing a wedding garment, who is present in the holy Church, and has faith, but does not have love. We are correct when we say that love is the wedding garment because this is what our Creator himself possessed when he came to the marriage feast to join the Church to himself. Only God’s love brought it about that his only-begotten Son united the hearts of his chosen to himself. John says that God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son for us.

And so the One who came to us out of love made known that this love is the wedding garment. Every one of you who belongs to the Church, who has believed in God, has already come in to the marriage feast; but he has not come in a wedding garment unless he preserves the gift of love. And surely, my friends, if any one of you was invited to a marriage feast, he would change his clothing and show by his dress how he rejoices with the bridegroom and bride; he would be ashamed to appear in contemptible clothing among those rejoicing and celebrating the festive occasion. We come to God’s marriage feast and do not care to change the clothing our hearts wear. The angels rejoice, the chosen are taken up to heaven! In what frame of mind do we look upon this spiritual feast if we do not possess the wedding garment, love, that is alone becoming?

Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies 38

In Praise of Hymnals

The last thing I want to define is “the Christian hymnal.” My heart aches as I see this increasingly being neglected by congregations.

The Christian hymnal is one of the great depositories of the Christian life and experience. The men and women behind these hymns were writing out of deep spiritual experiences. The poetry of some hymns may not be perfect. In fact, some may be very difficult to sing. Pushing the hymnal aside, however, is to forfeit one of the great spiritual treasures of the Christian Church. The hymnal connects us with our Christian heritage, a legacy that should not be denied to this generation of Christians. If we are going to press on to be hundredfold Christians, on to Christian perfection and the crucified life, we need this vital connection to the historic Church.

Show me the condition of your Bible and your hymnal and I will accurately predict the condition of your soul. Our souls need to be nurtured and cultivated, and nothing does that better than the Christian hymnal. I cannot imagine a Christian not spending quality time in the hymnal. Hardly a morning passes when I don’t kneel down with an open Bible and a hymnal and sing comfortably off-key the great hymns of the Church.

I often counsel young Christians, after they have their Bible and their Bible reading established, to get a hymnal. If a young Christian would spend one year reading through and meditating on the hymns of Isaac Watts alone, he would have a better theological education than four years in Bible college and four years in seminary. Isaac Watts and others like him were able to put theology into their hymns. These hymn writers—both men and women—set their generation singing theology. And the theology of the heart bursts forth in melodious adoration and praise.

A. W. Tozer, The Crucified Life: How to Live Out a Deeper Christian Experience 17–18