{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6589","native_reference":{"book_number":650,"chapter_from":12,"chapter_to":12,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":29,"verse_to":29},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Syncletica said, 'All must endure great travail and conflict when they are first converted to the Lord but later they have unspeakable joy. They are like people trying to light a fire, the smoke gets in their eyes, their eyes begin to water, but they succeed in what they want. It is written, \"Our God is a consuming fire\" (Heb. 12:29), and so we must kindle divine fire with tears and trouble.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Lot went to Joseph and said, 'Abba, as far as I can, I keep a moderate rule, with a little fasting, and prayer, and meditation, and quiet: and as far as I can I try to cleanse my heart of evil thoughts. What else should I do?' Then the hermit stood up and spread out his hands to heaven, and his fingers shone like ten flames of fire, and he said, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: For the Spirit, coeternal with the Father and Son, is shown in fire because God is incorporeal, ineffable, and invisible fire, as Paul attests: \"Our God is a consuming fire.\" God is indeed called fire because through Him the rust of sins is consumed.<br/><i>— Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 30</i></p><p><b>Hippolytus of Rome</b>: And whatever other such statements they advance respecting this (Aeon), these they allege to hold good of the animalish (one), whom they assert to be creator of the world. Now he is of the appearance of fire. Moses also, he says, expresses himself thus: \"The Lord thy God is a burning and consuming fire.\" For he, likewise, wishes (to think) that it has been so written. There is, however, he says, a twofold power of the fire; for fire is all-consuming, (and) cannot be quenched.<br/><i>— Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies Book VI</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"For our God is a consuming fire.\"</p><p>These things, he means, are terrible; and so terrible that they could not even bear to hear them, that not even \"a beast\" dared to go up. But things that come hereafter are not such. For what is Sinai to Heaven? And what the \"fire which might be touched\" to God who cannot be touched? For \"God is a consuming fire.\"<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 32</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: In sacred language God is called a fire, as when Scripture says, \"Our God is a consuming fire.\" Concerning the substance of the angels, it also speaks as follows: \"Who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a burning fire.\" And in another place, \"The angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire in the bush.\" In addition, we have received a command to be \"fervent in spirit\" by which expression undoubtedly the word of God is shown to be hot and fiery. The prophet Jeremiah also hears from him who gave him oracles, \"Behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire.\" As God, then, is a \"fire\" and the angels are \"flames of fire\" and all the saints are \"fervent in spirit,\" so, on the contrary, those who have fallen away from the love of God are undoubtedly said to have cooled in their affection for God and to have become cold.<br/><i>— ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2.8.3</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: Many have produced lengthy discussions of God and God's essence. Some have even said that God has a bodily nature that is composed of fine particles and is like ether. Others have said that God is incorporeal and is of a different essence that transcends bodies in dignity and power. For this reason it is worthwhile for us to see if we have resources from the divine Scriptures to say something about God's essence. In John 4:24 it is stated as if God's essence were spirit, for it says, \"God is spirit.\" But in the law, it is instead as if God's essence were fire, for it is written, \"Our God is a consuming fire.\" In John, however, it is stated as if God were light, for John says, \"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.\" If, then, we should listen to these words literally, making no inquiry beyond the letter, we would have to say that God is a body.… But because we do not see the consequences if we attribute a body to God when we say, even on the basis of Scripture, that God is some such body as spirit, or consuming fire, or light, unless we accept the conclusions that necessarily follow these assertions, we will disgrace ourselves as foolish and contradicting the obvious. For every fire is subject to extinction because it needs fuel; and every spirit, even if we take the spirit to be simple, because it is a body, admits of change to what is coarser in its own nature. In these matters, then, we must either accept so many absurd and blasphemous things about God in preserving the literal meanings, or, as we also do in many other cases, examine and inquire what can be meant when it is said that God is spirit or fire or light. First we must say that just as when we find it written that God has eyes, eyelids, ears, hands, arms, feet, and even wings, we change what is written into an allegory, despising those who bestow on God a form resembling humans; and we do this with good reason. So also must we act consistently with our practice in the case of the names mentioned above.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF John 13.123-131</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"c67c3ac5486bfbace63e3285738753cbb0d1cfc69d4c8b1501db615eee9ffb52","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6589,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"2118fb49d5dc0c4bc75cbd0ef2dce15beaa9d1d45b1403749dbddb5ef899c4e9","translator":null,"work":null}