Today I spent a fair amount of time in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series gathering some bibliographic information on Patristic commentaries. In the process I came across a number of interesting quotations that you may find interesting. Enjoy!
Origen on
“Chr-easters”: Tell me, you who come to church only on festal days, are the
other days not festal days? Are they not the Lord’s days? It belongs to the
Jews to observe religious ceremonies on fixed and infrequent days.… God hates,
therefore, those who think that the festal day of the Lord is on one day. Homilies on Genesis 10.3 (FC 71:162–63).
Jerome on how the overseers should be viewed: Be
obedient to your bishop and obey him as your spiritual father. Sons love and
slaves fear. “If I am a father,” he says, “where is my honor? And if I am a
master, where is my fear?” In your case one man combines in himself many titles
to your respect. He is at once monk, bishop and uncle. But the bishops also
should know themselves to be priests, not lords. Let them render to the clergy
the honor that is their due that the clergy may offer to them the respect which
belongs to bishops. Letter 52.7 (LCC
5:322).
Jerome on
treating the Church as a business: Is it not written, “He says, ‘My house shall
be called a house of prayer for all the nations’ ”? We read this in
Isaiah: “But you have made it a den of thieves (Lk 19:46).” …
Where we read, “You have made it a den of thieves,” John’s
Gospel had instead, “You have made it a house of business.” Wherever there are
thieves, there is a house of trafficking. Would that it were applied only to
the Jews and not the Christians! We would, indeed, weep for them but rejoice
for ourselves. But now, in many places, the house of God, the house of the
Father, has become a place of business.… I who am speaking and each one of you,
priest, deacon or bishop, who yesterday was a poor man, who today is a rich man
in the house of God! Homilies on Mark
83 (Mark 11:15–17) (FC 57:182–83).
Another
interesting interpretation I came across was how several Fathers treated Ezekiel
44:1-3 (ESV) “Then he brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, which
faces east. And it was shut. 2 And
the Lord said to me, “This gate
shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for
the Lord, the God of Israel, has
entered by it. Therefore it shall remain shut. 3 Only
the prince may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord. He shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gate,
and shall go out by the same way.”
Jerome,
Theodoret of Cyr, Rufinus of Aquileia, and Ambrose explicitly take it as a
reference to the (perpetually) Virgin Mary. I have to say, it’s not the least
convincing argument I’ve heard.
Jerome: Some
people nobly understand the Virgin Mary as the door that is closed, who before
and after birth remained a virgin, through which only the Lord God of Israel
enters. Commentary on Ezekiel
13.44.1–3 (CCL 75:646).
Theodoret of Cyr:
It is very likely that these words refer to the womb of the Virgin, through
which no one enters and from which no one departs other than the only one who
is the Lord. Commentary on Ezekiel
16.44 (PG 81:1233).
Ambrose: What
is that gate of the sanctuary, that outer gate facing the east and remaining
closed? Is not Mary the gate through whom the Redeemer entered this world? Letter 44 (FC 26:227).
Jerome:
Christ himself is a virgin, and his mother is also a virgin; though she is his
mother, she is a virgin still. For Jesus has entered in through the closed
doors, and in his tomb—a new one hewn out of the hardest rock—no one is laid
either before him or after him.… Mary is the east gate, spoken of by the
prophet Ezekiel, always shut and always shining and either concealing or
revealing the Holy of Holies. Letter
48.21 (NPNF 2 6:78).
Rufinus of Aquileia:
What could be said with such evident reference to the inviolate preservation of
the Virgin’s condition? That gate of virginity was closed: through it he came
forth from the Virgin’s womb into this world; and the virginity was preserved
inviolate, and the gate of the Virgin remained closed for ever. Therefore the
Holy Spirit is spoken of as the creator of the Lord’s flesh and of his temple. Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed 9
(NPNF 2 3:547).
I know I’m not providing any added context or commentary, but you’ll survive. This is just a brief return to the blogosphere before I return to the world of summative essays and research proposals. Read the Fathers!
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