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

Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:23–31)

The wealthy and legally correct man, not understanding these things figuratively, nor how the same man can be both poor and rich, and have wealth and not have it, and use the world and not use it, went away sad and downcast, leaving the state of life, which he was able merely to desire but not to attain, making for himself the difficult impossible. For it was difficult for the soul not to be seduced and ruined by the luxuries and flowery enchantments that beset remarkable wealth; but it was not impossible, even surrounded with it, for one to lay hold of salvation, provided he withdrew himself from material wealth,—to that which is grasped by the mind and taught by God, and learned to use things indifferent rightly and properly, and so as to strive after eternal life. And the disciples even themselves were at first alarmed and amazed. Why were they so on hearing this? Was it that they themselves possessed much wealth? Nay, they had long ago left their very nets, and hooks, and rowing boats, which were their sole possessions. Why then do they say in consternation, “Who can be saved?” They had heard well and like disciples what was spoken in parable and obscurely by the Lord, and perceived the depth of the words. For they were sanguine of salvation on the ground of their want of wealth. But when they became conscious of not having yet wholly renounced the passions (for they were neophytes and recently selected by the Savior), they were excessively astonished, and despaired of themselves no less than that rich man who clung so terribly to the wealth which he preferred to eternal life. It was therefore a fit subject for all fear on the disciples’ part; if both he that possesses wealth and he that is teeming with passions were the rich, and these alike shall be expelled from the heavens. For salvation is the privilege of pure and passionless souls.

But the Lord replies, “Because what is impossible with men is possible with God.” This again is full of great wisdom. For a man by himself working and toiling at freedom from passion achieves nothing. But if he plainly shows himself very desirous and earnest about this, he attains it by the addition of the power of God. For God conspires with willing souls.

Clement of Alexandria, Salvation of the Rich Man 20–21

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by My name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not cheat your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning. You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people; nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord (Lev 19:9-18)

During the harvest the owners are prohibited from appropriating what falls from the sheaves; as also in reaping [the Law] enjoins a part to be left unreaped; thereby excellently teaching those who possess to sharing and generosity by foregoing of their own to those who are in need and thus providing means of subsistence for the poor. You see how the Law proclaims at once the righteousness and goodness of God, who dispenses food to all ungrudgingly. And in the vintage it prohibited the grape-gatherers from going back again on what had been left, and from gathering the fallen grapes; and the same injunctions are given to the olive-gatherers. Besides, the tithes of the fruits and of the flocks taught both piety towards the Deity, and not covetously to grasp everything, but to communicate gifts of kindness to one’s neighbors. For it was from these, I reckon, and from the first-fruits that the priests were maintained. We now therefore understand that we are instructed in piety, and in liberality, and in justice, and in humanity by the Law. For does it not command the land to be left fallow in the seventh year and bids the poor fearlessly use the fruits that grow by divine agency, nature cultivating the ground for the benefit of all and sundry? How, then, can it be maintained that the Law is not humane, and the teacher of righteousness? Again, in the fiftieth year, it ordered the same things to be performed as in the seventh; besides restoring to each one his own land, if from any circumstance he had parted with it in the meantime; setting bounds to the desires of those who covet possession, by measuring the period of enjoyment, and choosing that those who have paid the penalty of protracted destitution should not suffer a life-long punishment.

Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 2.18

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

Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” … Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mk 10:22, 28–31)

Therefore on hearing those words, the blessed Peter, the elect, the chosen one,the first of the disciples, for whom alone and Himself the Savior paid tribute, quickly seized and comprehended the saying. And what does he say? “See, we have left all and followed You.” Now if by all he means his own property, he boasts of leaving four oboli perhaps in all, and forgets to show the kingdom of heaven to be their recompense. But if, casting away what we were now speaking of, the old mental possessions and soul diseases, they follow in the Master’s footsteps, this now joins them to those who are to be enrolled in the heavens. For it is thus that one truly follows the Savior, by aiming at sinlessness and at His perfection, and adorning and composing the soul before it as a mirror, and arranging everything in all respects similarly.

But let neither this trouble you, nor the still harder saying delivered in another place in the words, “Whoever hates not father, and mother, and children, and his own life besides, cannot be My disciple.” For the God of peace, who also exhorts to love enemies, does not introduce hatred and dissolution from those that are dearest. But if we are to love our enemies, it is in accordance with right reason that, ascending from them, we should love also those nearest in kindred; or if we are to hate our blood-relations, deduction teaches us that much more are we to spurn from us our enemies: so that the reasonings would be shown to cancel one another. But they do not cancel each other, nor are they near doing so. For from the same feeling and disposition, and on the ground of the same rule, one loving his enemy may hate his father, inasmuch as he neither takes vengeance on an enemy, nor reverences a father more than Christ. For by the one word he destroys hatred and injury, and by the other excessive deference towards one’s relations, if it is detrimental to salvation. If then one’s father, or son, or brother, be godless, and become a hindrance to faith and an impediment to the higher life, let him not be friends or agree with him, but on account of the spiritual enmity, let him dissolve the fleshly relationship.

Clement of Alexandria, Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved? 21–22

Soil Cultivation

“Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Mark 4:3-9)

I enjoy good teaching that leaves me thinking more on the material just reviewed. This past Sunday, our pastor taught on the Parable of Sower/Soils (depending on which title you prefer) from Mark 4:1-20, making the following useful analogy between the soils and men's hearts:

• Hard soil = hard heart
• Rocky soil = shallow heart
• Thorny soil = cluttered heart
• Good soil = open heart

He then followed up with a series of questions, but the first got my attention: How’s your heart? This got me to thinking: following the theme of the parable, can the soil be made more useful, and whose job is it to improve it?

Logically, it is not as though soil would ever receive only one planting. Farmers, as long as they are working a field, do what they can to improve their soil to gain a better harvest. We recognize, therefore, that since God is the Sower, He is the cultivator of the soil as Clement of Alexandria notes:

Finally there is only one cultivator of the soil of the human soul. It is the One who from the beginning, from the foundations of the world, has been sowing living seeds by which all things grow. In each age the Word has come down upon all like rain. But the times and places which received these gifts account for the differences which exist. (Stromateis 1.7)

It is He who alone has the ability to improve the soil. As the land is worked, there would be opportunity to remove thorns and rocks, and break up ground that had formerly been tamped down through constant wear. Over and again He sows the Word in order that previously poor ground might provide a yield, even as John Chrysostom writes:

For it is the way of the Lord never to stop sowing the seed, even when He knows beforehand that some of it will not respond. But how can it be reasonable, one asks, to sow among the thorns, or on the rock, or alongside the road? Maybe it is not reasonable insofar as it pertains only to seeds and earth, for the bare rock is not likely to turn into tillable soil, and the roadside will remain roadside and the thorns, thorns. But in the case of free wills and their reasonable instruction, this kind of sowing is praiseworthy. For the rocky soul can in time turn into rich soil. Among souls, the wayside may come no longer to be trampled by all that pass, and may become a fertile field. The thorns may be destroyed and the seed enjoy full growth. For had this not been impossible, this Sower would not have sown. And even if no change whatever occurs in the soul, this is no fault of the Sower, but of those who are unwilling to be changed. He has done his part. (Homilies on Matthew 44.5.1)

All this work does not happen immediately. The Holy Spirit is a chief worker in our souls as He broods or hovers over us in preparation of life. He cultivates us so that the seed, the Word of God, which is quick and powerful may cause growth. In addition, it is not as we are unwilling recipients. As opposed to inanimate ground, we respond to the working of the Word and Holy Spirit. True, it may be that the hard, rocky, or thorny heart might be more so in turning away from Sower, however, Augustine had better considerations as he exhorted:

Work diligently the soil while you may. Break up your fallow with the plow. Cast away the stones from your field, and dig out the thorns. Be unwilling to have a “hard heart,” such as makes the Word of God of no effect. Be unwilling to have a “thin layer of soil,” in which the root of divine love can find no depth in which to enter. Be unwilling to “choke the good seed” by the cares and the lusts of this life, when it is being scattered for your good. When God is the sower and we are the ground, we are called to work to be good ground. (Sermons on New Testament Lessons 73.3)

A final question the pastor had was, “How’s your heart?” Or to amend it for my purposes, “Have you taken a soil sample recently?” Let us not be like those who fall away, but instead let us receive the seed for our benefit both now and at the Last Day.

For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. (Heb 6:7–8)

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

May all who seek You greatly rejoice and be glad in You;
And let those who love Your salvation always say,
“Let God be magnified!”

But I am poor and needy;
O God, help me!
You are my helper and my deliverer;
O Lord, do not delay. (Ps 70:4–5 LXX)

Believe Him who is man and God; believe, O man. Believe, O man, the living God, who suffered and is adored. Believe, slaves, Him who died; believe, all you of human kind, Him who alone is God of all men. Believe, and receive salvation as your reward. Seek God, and your soul shall live. He who seeks God is busying himself about his own salvation. Have you found God? Then you have life. Let us then seek, in order that we may live. The reward of seeking is life with God. “Let all who seek You be glad and rejoice in You; and let them say continually, God be magnified.”

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen X

“Fill with complete satisfaction,” David is saying, “those who love You so that they may celebrate in song Your kindnesses. I am bereft of such people’s righteousness and a victim of poverty I have no wealth of virtue. I have benefited from Your providence; come to my aid as quickly as possible, and do not put off my request.” It is in fact, not only David but also the whole choir of the saints who make this entreaty.

Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to Sunday

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.  For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.  For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality.  (1 Thess 4:1-3)

There is only one calamity for a Christian, which is disobedience to God.  But all the other things, such as loss of property, exile, peril of life, he does not even reckon to be a grievance at all.  And that which all dread, departure hence to the other world,—this is to him sweeter than life itself. For as when one has climbed to the top of a cliff and gazes on the sea and those who are sailing upon it, he sees some being washed by the waves, others running upon hidden rocks, some hurrying in one direction, others being driven in another, like prisoners, by the force of the gale, many actually in the water, some of them using their hands only in the place of a boat and a rudder, and many drifting along upon a single plank, or some fragment of the vessel, others floating dead, a scene of manifold and various disaster.  Even so he who is engaged in the service of Christ drawing himself out of the turmoil and stormy billows of life takes his seat upon secure and lofty ground.  For what position can be loftier or more secure than that in which a man has only one anxiety, “How he ought to please God?”

John Chrysostom, Letters to Theodore 2.5

For the devil tempting us, knowing what we are, but not knowing if we will hold out, but wishing to dislodge us from the faith, attempts also to bring us into subjection to himself.  This is all that is allowed to him, partly from the necessity of saving us from ourselves, who have taken opportunity of the commandment—partly for the confusion of him* who has tempted and failed, but also for the confirmation of the members of the Church, and the conscience of those who admire such constancy.… For neither did the Lord suffer by the will of the Father, nor are those who are persecuted persecuted by the will of God.  Indeed, either of two things is the case: either persecution in consequence of the will of God is a good thing, or those who decree and afflict are guiltless.  But nothing is without the will of the Lord of the universe.  It remains to say that such things happen without the prevention of God, for this alone saves both the providence and the goodness of God.  We must not therefore think that He actively produces afflictions (far be it that we should think this!).… Providence is a disciplinary art—in the case of others for each individual’s sins, and in the case of the Lord and His apostles for ours.  To this point the divine apostle says: “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.”

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 4.12

* I.e., the devil.

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to Sunday

For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness.  Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.  But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.  (1 Thess 2:5-7)

To those, therefore, that have made progress in the Word, He has proclaimed this utterance, bidding them dismiss anxious care of the things of this world, and exhorting them to adhere to the Father alone, in imitation of children.… Then it is right to notice, with respect to the appellation of “little one” is not used in the sense of lacking intelligence.  The notion of childishness has that pejorative meaning, but the term “little one” really means “one newly become gentle,” just as the word gentle means being mild-mannered.  So, a “little one” means one just recently become gentle and meek in disposition.  This the blessed Paul most clearly pointed out when he said, “When we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, we were gentle among you, as a nurse cherishes her children.”  The little one is therefore gentle, and therefore more tender, delicate, and simple, guileless, and destitute of hypocrisy, straightforward and upright in mind, which is the basis of simplicity and truth.

Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 1.5

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But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us.  For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming?  Is it not you?  For you are our glory and joy. (1 Thess 2:17-20)

For we ought to walk by the standard of the saints and the fathers, and imitate them, and to be sure that if we depart from them we put ourselves also out of their fellowship.  Whom then do they wish you to imitate?  The one who hesitated, and while wishing to follow, delayed it and took counsel because of his family, or blessed Paul, who, the moment the stewardship was entrusted to him, “straightway conferred not with flesh and blood?”  For although he said, “I am not worthy to be called an Apostle,” yet, knowing what he had received, and being not ignorant of the giver, he wrote, “For woe is me if I preach not the gospel.”  But, as it was “woe to me” if he did not preach, so, in teaching and preaching the gospel, he had his converts as his joy and crown.  This explains why the saint was zealous to preach as far as Illyricum, and not to shrink from proceeding to Rome, or even going as far as the Spains, in order that the more he labored, he might receive so much the greater reward for his labor.  He boasted then that he had fought the good fight, and was confident that he should receive the great crown.

Athanasius, Letters to Dracontius 49.4

Great Is the Grace of His Promise

Continuing my posts of patristic texts coinciding with this Sunday’s Psalm study.

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And the Lord, with ceaseless assiduity, exhorts, terrifies, urges, rouses, admonishes.  He awakes from the sleep of darkness, and raises up those who have wandered in error.  “Awake,” He says, “you who sleeps, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light,” [Eph 5:14]—Christ, the Sun of the Resurrection, He “who was born before the morning star,” [Ps 110:3] and with His beams bestows life.  Let no one then despise the Word, lest he unwittingly despise himself.  For the Scripture somewhere says:

Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers proved Me by trial.… And saw my works forty years. Therefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in heart, and have not known My ways.  So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter into My rest. [Psa 95:8-11]

Look to the threatening!  Look to the exhortation!  Look to the punishment!  Why, then, should we any longer change grace into wrath, and not receive the word with open ears, and entertain God as a guest in pure spirits?  For great is the grace of His promise, “if today we hear His voice.”

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, IX