{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-459","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":9,"chapter_to":9,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":25,"verse_to":25},"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>Ambrose of Milan</b>: You are an athlete. Come to grips with your opponent, not with your head but with your arms.<br/><i>— The Six Days of Creation, Book 6, Chapter 1</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: When we enter upon the way of the Lord, let us fast from the vanity of this present life and refresh ourselves with the hope of the future life, not focusing our heart on things here but feasting it on things above.<br/><i>— SERMON 263</i></p><p><b>Basil of Caesarea</b>: No one is crowned except he strive lawfully.<br/><i>— GIVE HEED TO THYSELF</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: No effort, no crown! Today there are people who place the widow above the virgin in terms of self-control, because the widow has rejected a pleasure which she once enjoyed.<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 3</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: This is the struggle of our faith in which we engage, in which we conquer, in which we are crowned. This is the struggle which the blessed Apostle Paul has shown to us, in which it behoves us to run and to attain the crown of glory. \"Do ye not know,\" says he, \"that they which run in a race, run all indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain.\" \"Now they do it that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.\" Moreover, setting forth his own struggle, and declaring that he himself should soon be a sacrifice for the Lord's sake, he says, \"I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my assumption is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.\" This fight, therefore, predicted of old by the prophets, begun by the Lord, waged by the apostles, Mappalicus promised again to the proconsul in his own name and that of his colleagues.<br/><i>— Epistle VIII</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Joseph asked Poemen, 'How should we fast?' Poemen said, 'I suggest that everyone should eat a little less than he wants, every day.' Joseph said to him, 'When you were a young man, didn't you fast for two days on end?' He said to him, 'That's right, I used to fast three days on end, even for a week. But the great hermits have tested all these things, and they found that it is good to eat something every day, but on some days a little less. They have shown us that this is the king's highway, for it is easy and light.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: She also said, 'The devil sometimes sends a severe fast which is too prolonged; the devil's disciples do this as well as holy men. How do we distinguish the fasting of our God and King from the fasting of that tyrant the devil? Clearly by its moderation. Throughout your life, then, you ought to keep an unvarying rule of fasting. Do you fast four or five days on end and then lose your spiritual strength by eating a feast? That really pleases the devil! Everything which is extreme is destructive. So do not suddenly throw away your armour, or you may be found unarmed in the battle and easily captured. Our body is the armour, our soul is the warrior. Take care of both, and you will be ready for whatever comes.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"And every man that striveth in the games is temperate in all things.\"</p><p>What is, \"all things?\" He doth not abstain from one and err in another, but he masters entirely gluttony and lasciviousness and drunkenness and all his passions. \"For this,\" saith he, \"takes place even in the heathen games. For neither is excess of wine permitted to those who contend at the time of the contest, nor wantonness, lest they should weaken their vigor, nor yet so much as to be busied about any thing else, but separating themselves altogether from all things they apply themselves to their exercise only.\" Now if there these things be so where the crown fails to one, much more here, where the incitement in emulation is more abundant. For here neither is one to be crowned alone, and the rewards also far surpass the labors. Wherefore also he puts it so as to shame them, saying, \"Now they do it receive to a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.\"<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 23</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: And as in worldly matters, if a man cannot perform properly the piece of work which he wisheth to do without setting himself free from all other work, and occupying himself with that alone, how much less can a man finish this spiritual labour unless he set himself free from the service of everything which is visible? Even as the blessed Paul also saith, \"Every man who maketh a contest, keepeth his mind from everything\"; and of what contest did he speak except the exercising of the body in the world? And if to a contest in which the body is engaged the service of carnal things is a hindrance, how much more will it be so to a spiritual contest? For in the one case, as regards the contest of the world, the contest, and the struggling therein, and the conquest therein, and also the things which retard the conquest therein, are one in nature, and they are all the children of one country, and although all these things are related to each other, the world with its cares and anxieties becometh an obstacle unto those who maintain the strife. How can a man fulfil the life here, then, which is a spiritual contest, and a service, and a life which is above the world, if he be tied unto and held fast by the things of the world?<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 9 -- Second Discourse on Poverty</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: They are kept from luxury, from daintier meats, from more pleasant drinks; they are pressed, racked, worn out; the harder their labours in the preparatory training, the stronger is the hope of victory. \"And they,\" says the apostle, \"that they may obtain a corruptible crown.\" We, with the crown eternal in our eye, look upon the prison as our training-ground, that at the goal of final judgment we may be brought forth well disciplined by many a trial; since virtue is built up by hardships, as by voluptuous indulgence it is overthrown.<br/><i>— Ad Martyras</i></p><p><b>Theonas of Alexandria</b>: Be clothed with patience and courtesy; be replenished with the virtues and the hope of Christ. Bear all things for the sake of your Creator Himself; endure all things; overcome and get above all things, that ye may win Christ the Lord. Great are these duties, and full of painstaking. But he that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things; and they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.<br/><i>— The Epistle of Theonas, Bishop of Alexandria, to Lucianus, the Chief Chamberlain</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"52996b0c23020d6f7600ac9c83ded53e6cf01f01e91c41db267611c7414c7657","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":459,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"5f3207b9ef119140d53c6243b2d4a5cc63afea8f66ce2faed282049cf62a134c","translator":null,"work":null}