{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6664","native_reference":{"book_number":650,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":14,"verse_to":14},"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>Clement of Alexandria</b>: The greatest possible likeness to the Logos, the hope of being established fully as adopted sons of the Father—this is our goal, a sonship that constantly glorifies the Father through \"the great high priest\" who deigned to call us \"brothers\" and \"fellow heirs.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 2</i></p><p><b>Cosmas Indicopleustes</b>: Having therefore a great high priest who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession —the expression who hath passed through the heavens, that is heaven, according to the idiom of the language, means that He is within the two heavens, as in a Tabernacle not made with hands.<br/><i>— The Christian Topography, Book 7</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: These things indeed (he would say) are sufficient to instruct us. But we have also \"a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.\" Because he added it, for this reason he went on, \"For we have not an High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.\" Therefore he said above, \"In that He hath suffered Himself being tempted, He is able to succor them which are tempted.\" See then how here also he does the same. And what he says is to this effect: He went (he says) the road which we also are going now, or rather even a more rugged one. For He had experience of all human sufferings.</p><p>He had said above \"There is no creature that is not manifest in His sight,\" intimating His Godhead; then, since he had touched on the flesh, he again discourses more condescendingly, saying (ver. 14), \"Having then a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens\": and shows that His care is greater and that He protects them as His own, and would not have them fall away. For Moses indeed (he says) did not enter into the rest, while He Christ did enter in. And it is wonderful how he has nowhere stated the same, lest they might seem to find an excuse; he however implied it, but that he might not appear to bring an accusation against the man, he did not say it openly. For if, when none of these things had been said, they yet brought forward these charges, saying, This man hath spoken against Moses and against the law (see Acts xxi. 21, Acts xxi. 28); much more, if he had said, It is not Palestine but Heaven, would they have said stronger things than these.</p><p>But he attributes not all to the Priest, but requires also what is to come from us, I mean our profession. For \"having,\" he says, \"a great High Priest, who is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession\" or \"confession\". What sort of profession does he mean? That there is a Resurrection, that there is a retribution: that there are good things innumerable; that Christ is God, that the Faith is right. These things let us profess, these things let us hold fast. For that they are true, is manifest from the fact, that the High Priest is within. We have not failed of our hopes, let us confess; although the realities are not present, yet let us confess: if already they were present they were but a lie. So that this also is true, that our good things are deferred. For our High Priest also is Great.<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 7</i></p><p><b>Methodius of Olympus</b>: For I also, taking my journey, and going forth from the Egypt of this life, came first to the resurrection, which is the true Feast of the Tabernacles, and there having set up my tabernacle, adorned with the fruits of virtue, on the first day of the resurrection, which is the day of judgment, celebrate with Christ the millennium of rest, which is called the seventh day, even the true Sabbath. Then again from thence I, a follower of Jesus, \"who hath entered into the heavens\"<br/><i>— Methodius Discourse IX. Tusiane</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: Therefore, let us not be subjected to those tremendous punishments, since we have a great high priest, let us hold fast our profession, that is, let us not abandon the faith which is in Him, but let us firmly hold it within ourselves. What is it, then? Who has passed through the heavens? He is not, he says, like Moses who could not enter the land of promise, nor did he introduce the people, but Christ has also passed through the heavens and sits on the throne of the Father; therefore, He can also introduce us. He calls Himself a priest because He offered Himself as a victim to God the Father. For it is proper for a priest to offer sacrifices for the people.<br/><i>— The Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on Hebrews</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: I think that the saints, as they depart from this life, will remain in some place situated on the earth that the divine scripture calls \"paradise.\" This will be a place of instruction and, so to speak, a lecture room or school for souls, in which they may be taught about all that they had seen on earth. They may also receive some indications of what is to follow in the future, just as … in this life they had obtained certain indications of the future, seen indeed \"through a glass darkly\" and truly \"in part,\" which are revealed more clearly and brightly to the saints in their proper times and places. If any are \"pure in heart\" and of unpolluted mind and well-trained understanding, they will make swifter progress and quickly ascend to the region of the air until they reach the kingdom of the heavens, passing through the series of those \"rooms,\" if I may so call them, which the Greeks have termed spheres, that is, globes, but which the divine Scripture calls heavens. In each of these they will first observe all that happens there and then learn the reason why it happens; and thus they will proceed in order through each stage, following him who has \"passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God,\" and who has said, \"I desire that they also may be with me where I am.\" Further, he alludes to this diversity of places when he says, \"In my Father's house are many rooms.\" He himself, however, is everywhere and runs through all things. And we are no longer to think of him as being confined within those narrow limits in which he once lived for our sakes, that is, in that circumscribed condition which was his when he dwelt on earth among humans in a body like ours, so that it was then possible to think of him as being enclosed in some one place.<br/><i>— ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2.11.6</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: You will ascertain a right understanding of this Scripture and others if in Christ you are fond of learning and you rise above learning \"through a mirror\" and \"in an enigma,\" desiring to rush to him who calls. And you will approach knowing \"face to face,\" as friends of your Father and teacher in heaven. For friends learn not through enigmas but by what is seen or by wisdom stripped of sounds, speech, symbols and types, attending to the nature of things perceived and the beauty of truth. If you believe that Paul was caught up to the third heaven and was caught up in paradise and heard what cannot be expressed, which no one may utter, you will then know the unexpressed things which were revealed to Paul when he descended from the third heaven. At once you will know more and greater things, after the revealing and descent, if you take up the cross and follow after Jesus, in whom we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. And you yourselves will pass through the heavens if you do not fail to follow him, rising above not only the earth and the mysteries of earth, but also heaven and its mysteries. For in God there are many greater things treasured up than these visions, which no bodily nature can attain unless it first is set free from all that is corporeal. For I am persuaded that God has stored up and keeps for himself many greater things than these, which the sun and moon and company of stars and even the holy angels know of, which God made by wind and flame of fire. He has done this so that he may reveal them, when all creation is set free from slavery to the enemy and obtains the glorious freedom of the children of God.<br/><i>— EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 13</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: In what has been commented on before, he made the comparison of the different kinds of rest and brought out that the rest promised to us is better than that pledged to Jews: to them he pledged the land of promise, whereas to us heaven. Here on the other hand he now develops the contrast of high priesthood and brings out that the high priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek is far better and greater than the levitical kind. Adopting once again exhortatory mode, he makes the comparison lest he seem to those still embracing the way of life according to the law to be hostile to the law and not rather defending the truth.… The apostolic verses also teach us this: they present him as having passed through the heavens, whereas the divinity of Christ the Lord has an uncircumscribed nature, is present everywhere and is near to everyone. The Lord himself also taught us this, \"No one has ascended to heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven.\" Though being here below and conversing with human beings, he claimed also to be on high. It is therefore necessary for us to realize that some names are appropriate to the divinity, some to the incarnation.<br/><i>— INTERPRETATION OF Hebrews 4</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"35da3ca92608c35038c0a672d87ee2f97fcc6684b3081f36f6397dab2adc48dc","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6664,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"c728d323e680bfd9c09ac14c3d6a5f52171ab2e9500790b043a92d1c9e4cd347","translator":null,"work":null}