Nothing New Under the Sun

You have my apologies for letting this blog go dormant for so long. I hope to write more in time, but this first year of postgraduate studies has been time-engaging, to say the least!

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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