Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14–21)

The apostle expresses the sort of prayers he has for the Ephesians: that God give you—he says—the riches of His glory. He also discloses what these riches of the glory of God are: the power to be strengthened by His Spirit in order that they be strong against the flesh and the desires of the flesh, and against the most evil powers of the world. This comes about and is produced by the Spirit of God. But how are they strengthened—that is, rendered strong—by the Spirit of God? In the interior person for Christ to dwell, says he. For when Christ begins to dwell in the interior person, i.e., in the soul, people are rendered strong in power by the Spirit, all adversities are expelled. Now Paul adds how Christ dwells in the interior person: by faith in your hearts, he says. So it is a simple and fine thing—simple, in that faith alone provides so great a service, so great a benefit. What? That Christ would dwell in our hearts. What do we acquire with Him indwelling? That we would be stronger through the Spirit and thus have the riches of the glory of God; and that having been rendered strong we might sustain no harm, might despise the world, and conquer all the most evil powers. These are the riches of God. We look forward even to glory and the promise, rooted and grounded in love. This most important precept has been laid down everywhere by Paul and has been presented by me quite frequently by way of admonition: for the stability and foundation, the whole status of the soul with respect to eternity, is in love. This love, I have often said, is love for God, for Christ, and toward men. This love makes our faith rooted and grounded.

Marius Victorinus, Commentary on Ephesians 1.3.16–17

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:11–22)

Through His Mystery, surely, we have been reconciled to God and are no longer aliens nor adversaries. For when we were worshiping other gods and serving idols, it was as if we were at war with the Father, that is, with God. But a middleman, Christ, reconciled us in Himself by His Mystery and passion.… Christ, says Paul, is our peace, whom elsewhere he calls mediator. For Christ has put Himself between the separated realms: because souls born from the fount of God are held in this world—or were being held; and a middle wall, a kind of barrier and partition, was intruding through the allures of the flesh and worldly desires. Christ, by His Mystery, passion, cross, and teaching, broke down the middle wall. That is, conquering the flesh (and teaching that it is to be conquered) and breaking down the desires of the world (and teaching that they are to be broken down), Christ razed the middle wall. But it is in the flesh, Paul is saying, that Christ is certainly breaking down the hostilities. Therefore it is not of our labor (as I have pointed out) that we break them down; rather, faith alone in Christ is salvation for us. For He has broken down all the hostilities in His flesh. So too He broke down the law of commandments, nullifying it in its decrees—as He did not nullify it as far as works or sabbaths are concerned (for these have been decreed in the law and are themselves commandments). Christ did not nullify the law, I say, as far as precepts regarding such observances understood in a fleshly sense are concerned. Once the [other decrees] were nullified, the middle which had intruded was razed; and souls are no longer hindered by the world as if by a barrier (that is, by worldly, i.e., fleshly, cravings, thoughts, and desires) from seeing, recognizing, and following God, and even being joined to God.

This deed is the Mystery of the cross: that all things inimical to souls and to our spirit (i.e., worldly desires, cravings of the flesh, and the flesh itself which is somehow corrupted and weak) might be carried off to their punishment. Through the cross, then Christ eliminated the hostilities—that is, everything opposing souls. And where did He eliminate them? In His own self. For this reason Christ assumed flesh: that He might overcome the flesh in His own self; and that in this way, He might through the flesh be of use to the flesh by eliminating its corruption, by assuming pure and eternal flesh, and the whole body of Deity through the resurrection—since all things are made spirit, as Paul teaches in many places and is self-evident.

Marius Victorinus, Commentary on Ephesians 1.2.14–16

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Mercy and Truth have met together, Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other by Evelyn de Morgan

I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me,
because he will speak peace for his people
and for his holy ones
and those who turn their heart to him.
But his salvation is near to those who fear him,
so that glory would dwell in our land.
Mercy and truth met together.
Righteousness and peace embraced.
Truth grew up from the land,
and righteousness looked down from heaven.
Indeed, the Lord will give goodness,
and our land will give its fruit.
Righteousness will go before in front of him,
and it will place his steps on the way. (Psalm 84:9–14 LXX [Ps 85:8–13])

He passes to the third section, in which he proclaims the coming of the Lord Savior with a most beautiful figure. For after praying that the Lord would appear to him, he is filled with sudden enlightenment, as though he has obtained his request, and he says: I will hear, that is, I shall not hinder myself by speaking, for I now realize that I have heard what I am to believe. We recognize that this type of utterance is peculiar to divine Scripture, for in my opinion nothing like it is found in secular books. You see the power of prophecy made manifest by these words. The Lord, that is the Holy Spirit, speaks within so that the psalmist may appear to be able to speak without. He listens inwardly so that he may be listened to outwardly. The prophet silently learns what the people can hear when it strikes their ears. Next comes: For he will speak peace to his people and to his saints. God’s Peace is the Lord Christ; he says that the Holy Spirit will speak of this Peace, for He is to tell of His Incarnation. When the psalmist spoke of the people, he said his people, not the uncommitted. He referred to the holy men who pleased the Lord by their edifying manner of life. The Lord Christ is their Peace, but He is a stumbling block and a foolishness to the unfaithful; they endure war in their sacrilegious hearts, for they do not follow the Author of peace along upright paths. But let us scrutinize this verse a little more attentively, for he refutes sinful minds by witnessing to the truth itself. Here the nature of the holy Spirit is clearly stated: He is the Lord God. Where are they who say that the holy Spirit is inferior to Father and Son, and is so lowly that He is thought not to have discretion over His own will? Let us listen to the holy Spirit who of His own accord said through His prophet that He was the Lord God.…

For though mercy and truth, peace and justice are abstractions, he allotted footsteps to two and embraces to the other two, both being bodily attributes. After he has stated from what nation the Lord was to be born, he now explains what benefits the coming of the holy incarnation has imparted. Through the Lord’s gift, the two Testaments have been united in an interlinked chain. In the New Testament comes mercy, by which the human race is freed through grace; in the Old stands truth, in which the Law and the proclamation of the prophets are contained, as was already said at Psalm 70. These two have met each other not to maintain their opposition, but to fulfill the grace of promised perfection; for it is clear that what was seen to be divided by eras has become one. So as to emphasize clearly the nature of the alliance, he restated with varied repetition of terms the fact that the two states, justice and peace, had lastingly entered into reciprocal harmony by a kind of loving embrace. Such an embrace tends to occur when people see each other after a long time; in loving enthusiasm they hug each other with arms entwined.

Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms 84.9, 11

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

This was the vision of the likeness of the Lord’s glory. And I saw and fell on my face and I heard the voice of one speaking. And he said to me, “Son of man, stand upon your feet and I will speak to you.” And the spirit came upon me and took me up and lifted me up and made me stand on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. And he said to me, “Son of man, I am dispatching you to the house of Israel who provoke me, they and their fathers who have provoked me up to the present day. And you shall say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says!’ whether they hear or are terrified, because it is a rebellious house, and they will know that you are a prophet in their midst. And you, son of man, do not be frightened by them or confounded by them, because they will incite and gather against you, and you dwell in the midst of scorpions; do not be frightened by their words or be confounded by their face, because it is a rebellious house. And you shall tell them my words, whether they hear or are terrified, because it is a rebellious house. (Ezekiel 2:1–7 LXX)

It is a sign of great mercy that God sends him to people like these, and that He does not give up hope for their salvation; and it is also a sign of the prophet’s boldness that he does not fear to go to such as these. Now we should understand of a hard face and of an obstinate heart in accordance with what is said to the sinner: “Your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brazen.” They are the ones who are rebuked in what follows for having a stony heart, which God says He will remove and shall put in its place a fleshly one, so that it might receive God’s precepts with their own softness.

Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel 1.2.4

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching. (Mark 6:4–6)

Can and cannot may denote something which is contrary to the will, as in the text: He could do no deed of power there because of unbelief, that is, the unbelief of those who should have received Him. For since a healing requires both faith in the patient and power in the Healer, when one of the two was absent the other was impossible. But probably this use of cannot is related to the sense of something unreasonable. For healing is not reasonable in the case of those who would afterwards be injured by unbelief. The same sense applies to the saying, The world cannot hate you, as well as to the saying, How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For how is either of these things impossible, except that it is contrary to the will? There is a somewhat similar meaning in the texts which imply that a thing impossible by nature is possible to God if He so wills—as that a man cannot be born a second time, or that the eye of a needle will not let a camel through it. For what could prevent either of these things happening, if God so willed? And besides all this, there is the absolutely impossible and inadmissible, such as what we are now examining. For as we assert that it is impossible for God to be evil or not to exist—for this would indicate weakness in God rather than strength—or for the non-existent to exist, or for two and two to make both four and ten, so it is impossible and inconceivable that the Son should do anything that the Father does not do.

Gregory Nazianzen, On the Son, 2 10–11