{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1503","native_reference":{"book_number":90,"chapter_from":9,"chapter_to":9,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":9,"verse_to":9},"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>Augustine of Hippo</b>: I wonder how that opinion could have arisen whereby sight is thought to belong to bodies only. But, from whatever habit of speech that opinion may have come, the holy Scriptures are not accustomed to speak thus; they attribute vision not only to the body but also to the spirit, and more to the spirit than to the body. Otherwise they would not have been right in giving the name seers to the prophets who saw the future not by bodily but by spiritual sight.<br/><i>— LETTER 147.50</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: Once in Israel, everyone used to speak thus: \"Come, let us go to the seer,\" etc. The same man is rightly called an investigator and narrator of secrets, and a prophet, because he speaks of the future, that is, he foretells. And he is not unreasonably called a Seer, because with the cleansed eyes of the heart he searches the mysteries that less perfect ones cannot. Hence, their writings are called visions as well as prophecies. \"The vision,\" he says, \"of Isaiah, son of Amoz.\" \"The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.\" \"The word that Isaiah, son of Amoz, saw\" (Isa. 1; Nahum 1; Isa. 2). Therefore, those who claim that the prophets of God spoke in a trance like the Cataphrygians and were unaware of the wise words they uttered should indeed be refuted. In line with the truth of the apostolic sentence, it should be understood catholically that the spirits of the prophets were subject to the prophets, so they knew by reason when to speak and when to be silent. Finally, the Psalmist. He who diligently seeks the commandments of God boasts that he understands more than the elders (Psalms 119). And in another place: \"I will sing psalms and understand in the blameless way, when you come to me\" (Psalms 101). Therefore, he does not sing psalms ignorantly as if possessed, who understands what he sings, with the spirit of wisdom coming upon him; but often the prophets, regarding certain things divinely shown to them which, due to their greatness, men could scarcely grasp, would inquire from the angels standing by as if using reason, and thirsting for wisdom. But it is questioned how Samuel, who does not speak of distant past but of present times, that is, the times of his age, can say: \"For he who is called a prophet today was formerly called a seer.\" And they wish these and such verses to have been inserted by Ezra the priest and scribe, when he restored the holy Scripture, as if recounting times long past. For even long after Samuel's death up to the times of Ezra, the name of seers is equally ascribed to the prophets in the Scriptures.<br/><i>— Commentary on Samuel</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: And because a celebrated fame invited them to veneration of this same man of God, he adds: \"For he was called the Seer.\" For to be called is to be spoken of by public report. But a Seer is one who looks upon even inward things, which the mind of carnal men does not attend to. Whence it is also said of the holy living creatures: \"Round about and within they were full of eyes.\" They are watchful in outward things and provident inwardly. Against which presumption of carnal teachers the Lord rebukes in the Gospel, saying: \"If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch\" (Matt. 15:14). A Seer is also called one to whom distant and absent things are present. This well befits holy preachers, who through knowledge are as present to spiritual things as they disdain to fix their attention on outward things. For they hold hidden things as open and distant things as present, who always understand those things which carnal men cannot know. For such ought the pastor of the holy Church to be, because he is placed on the way of the heavenly homeland to provide light to those under him. Therefore let him always scatter rays of light, so that the faithful subjects, from the experience of his illumination, may draw others to illumination. \"Formerly in Israel everyone going to consult God spoke thus: Come, let us go to the Seer.\"</p><p>We go to consult the Lord when we proceed to learned preachers, so that we may find counsel for our salvation. But because there is now such a rarity of perfect men, while we consider the flower of religion in ancient times, let us bewail its decline in the present time. Struck with compunction over the misery and calamity of the present time, let us sigh that the flower of the past age has withered together with the beauty of holiness. Therefore, when we see the pastors of the Churches clinging to earthly things, seeking what is passing away, displaying no marks of the spiritual life, when no light from our prelates is poured upon us, remembering those things which have passed away unto the labor of compunction, let us say: \"Formerly everyone in Israel who went to consult the Lord used to speak thus: Come, let us go to the Seer.\" Israel means \"seeing God,\" or \"in whom God is.\" This name is certainly fittingly applied to the holy Church, whose people it is said to be. For in the Gospel it is also said: \"Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age\" (Matt. 28:20). Since she indeed had in former times pastors flourishing in spiritual conduct, learned in great knowledge, who with great contempt despised earthly things and contemplated heavenly ones, the people could exhort one another toward the light which they saw in them, saying: \"Let us go to the Seer.\" If therefore we must go to those who see, we must equally turn away from the blind, because we ought not to imitate but flee the examples of reprobate prelates; but from those who through the merit of their conduct know spiritual things, we should always seek instruction for our edification.<br/><i>— Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 4, Chapter 4</i></p><p><b>Hippolytus of Rome</b>: For with what reason should the prophet be called a prophet, unless he in spirit foresaw the future? For if the prophet spoke of any chance event, he would not be a prophet then in speaking of things which were under the eye of all. But one who sets forth in detail things yet to be, was rightly judged a prophet. Wherefore prophets were with good reason called from the very first \"seers.\"<br/><i>— ON THE ANTICHRIST 2</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: In him [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He also who was hidden in a mystery is the same that was foreordained before the world. Now it was in the law and in the prophets that he was foreordained and prefigured. For this reason too the prophets were called seers, because they saw him whom others did not see.<br/><i>— LETTER 53.4</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: The church has real eyes: manifestly its churchmen and teachers who see in holy Writ the mysteries of God, and to them applies the scriptural appellation of \"seer.\" It is correct, then, to call these seers the eyes of the church.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON Matthew 85</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"f76510fc4bca71dc641c0cbb67dd00fa5cb758c120764b9f7b73e17b7bd954a5","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1503,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"80ba31bf662fa885d11105e7db1250a91959b6fc2f9ad4ac0467915ae6813370","translator":null,"work":null}