Jerome : It is of all of us … that the apostle speaks. Christ is a pauper, let us blush with shame. Christ is lowly, let us be made lowly. Christ was crucified. He did not rule. He was crucified in order to rule. He conquered the world, not in pride but in humility. He destroyed the devil, not by derisive laughter but by weeping; he did not scourge but was scourged. He received a blow but did not give blows. Let us, therefore, imitate our Lord. — HOMILIES ON Mark 83 John Chrysostom : "Perverse disputings," that is, leisure or conversation, or he may mean intercommunication, and that as infected sheep by contact communicate disease to the sound, so do these bad men. "Destitute of the truth, thinking that gain is godliness." Observe what evils are produced by strifes of words. The love of gain, ignorance, and pride; for pride is engendered by ignorance. "From such withdraw thyself." He does not say, engage and contend with them, but "withdraw thyself," turn away from them; as elsewhere he says, "A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject." He shows that they do not so much err from ignorance, as they owe their ignorance to their indolence. Those who are contentious for the sake of money you will never persuade. They are only to be persuaded, so long as you give, and even so you will never satisfy their desires. For it is said, "The covetous man's eye is not satisfied with a portion." From such then, as being incorrigible, it is right to turn away. And if he who had much obligation to fight for the truth, is advised not to engage in contention with such men, much more should we avoid it, who are in the situation of disciples. — Homily on 1 Timothy 17 Malchion : Whereas he was formerly poor and beggarly, having neither inherited a single possession from his fathers, nor acquired any property by art or by any trade, he has now come to have excessive wealth by his deeds of iniquity and sacrilege, and by those means by which he despoils and concusses the brethren, casting the injured unfairly in their suit, and promising to help them for a price, yet deceiving them all the while and to their loss, taking advantage of the readiness of those in difficulties to give in order to get deliverance from what troubled them, and thus supposing that gain is godliness. Neither need I say any thing about his pride and the haughtiness with which he assumed worldly dignities, and his wishing to be styled procurator rather than bishop, and his strutting through the market-places, and reading letters and reciting them as he walked in public, and his being escorted by multitudes of people going before him and following him; so that he brought ill-will and hatred on the faith by his haughty demeanour and by the arrogance of his heart. — The Epistle Written by Malchion Oecumenius : friction. The transmission of the disease of bad doctrines, from the contact of miserable sheep. For those who come into contact are filled with the disease, along with the healthy ones. imagining that godliness is a means of gain. Do you know that even battles of words produce shameful profit? It is no wonder, for those who contend with words attract more students, making a profit from them, whether monetary gain. They pretend virtue in order to amass wealth through it. Depart from such people. Paul did not say, "Join with such men and fight," but "depart," after one and then a second warning. For how will you ever be able to persuade men fighting for money? Therefore, since they are persistent, turn away from them. — COMMENTARY ON 1 TIMOTHY Origen of Alexandria : In appearance Judas championed the cause of the poor and said with indignation, "This ointment might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor." But in reality he "was a thief, and having the bag took away what was put in it." If, then, anyone in our time who has the bag of the church speaks like Judas on behalf of the poor but takes away what is put in it, let there be assigned to him the portion along with Judas who did these same things. — COMMENTARY ON Matthew 11.9