{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5498","native_reference":{"book_number":550,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":26,"verse_to":26},"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>Ambrosiaster</b>: Jerusalem, which he calls our mother, represents the Lord's mystery, through which we are reborn into freedom, just as she is free. And she is called heavenly because heaven is her seat. Those to whom she gives birth will be there with her.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 4.26</i></p><p><b>Hippolytus of Rome</b>: \"If ye hasten to fly out of Egypt, and repair beyond the Red Sea into the wilderness,\" that is, from earthly intercourse to the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of the living; \"If, moreover, again you return into Egypt,\" that is, into earthly intercourse, \"ye shall die as men.\" For mortal, he says, is every generation below, but immortal that which is begotten above, for it is born of water only, and of spirit, being spiritual, not carnal. But what (is born) below is carnal, that is, he says, what is written. \"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.\" This, according to them, is the spiritual generation.<br/><i>— Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies Book V</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: Now all these things being such as they are, cannot be understood in reference to super-celestial matters; \"for God,\" it is said, \"will show to the whole earth that is under heaven thy glory.\" But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition], and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above, of which the prophet Isaiah says, \"Behold, I have depicted thy walls upon my hands, and thou art always in my sight,\" And the apostle, too, writing to the Galatians, says in like manner, \"But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.\" He does not say this with any thought of an erratic Aeon, or of any other power which departed from the Pleroma, or of Prunicus, but of the Jerusalem which has been delineated on [God's] hands. And in the Apocalypse John saw this new [Jerusalem] descending upon the new earth.<br/><i>— Against Heresies Book V</i></p><p><b>John Cassian</b>: One and the same Jerusalem can be understood in a fourfold way: historically as the city of the Jews, allegorically as the church of Christ, anagogically as the heavenly city of God, which is the mother of all, and tropologically as the human soul, which is often upbraided or praised under this name by the Lord.<br/><i>— CONFERENCES 14.8.4</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Those therefore, who are born of her are not bondmen. Thus the type of the Jerusalem below was Hagar, as is plain from the mountain being so called; but of that which is above is the Church. Nevertheless he is not content with these types, but adds the testimony of Isaiah to what he has spoken...<br/><i>— Homily on Galatians 4</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"the upper Jerusalem.\" The one is the figure of Hagar; in these things, behold also the figure of Sarah. The figure of her is the upper Jerusalem, that is, the heavenly. For that city of the faithful is free from the observances of the law, and is our mother, he says. Therefore Hagar fulfills the figure of the Old Covenant and of the Jews. But Sarah of the New Covenant and of us. And he called the upper Jerusalem also the Church.<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: The temples of our houses of prayer are of the world because the buildings thereof are derived from the world and constructed therein; but they are spiritual things above the world, because they are types of that Church of the firstborn, whose names are inscribed in heaven, which is Jerusalem the free, the mother of us all. And all the altars and all the other vessels of the service of the Mysteries, and everything with which we perform the Mysteries which have been delivered to us, according to natural origin are of the world; but by reason of the greatness of those things which are administered in them they are exalted and most high, and are esteemed by us as being above nature, for they are the likeness of the living and spiritual powers which are in heaven, in which the service of the hidden Mysteries of God and of His will are perfected.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 3 -- On Faith</i></p><p><b>Polycarp of Smyrna</b>: These things, brethren, I write to you concerning righteousness, not because I take anything upon myself, but because ye have invited me to do so. For neither I, nor any other such one, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul. He, when among you, accurately and stedfastly taught the word of truth in the presence of those who were then alive. And when absent from you, he wrote you a letter, which, if you carefully study, you will find to be the means of building you up in that faith which has been given you, and which, being followed by hope, and preceded by love towards God, and Christ, and our neighbour, \"is the mother of us all.\" For if any one be inwardly possessed of these graces, he hath fulfilled the command of righteousness, since he that hath love is far from all sin.<br/><i>— Epistle to the Philippians 3</i></p><p><b>Pseudo-Clement</b>: Do you know how, like a man, to enter \"lawfully\" upon this contest and \"strive,\" [2 Timothy 2:5] that, in the might of the Holy Spirit, you choose this for yourself, that you may be crowned with a crown of light, and that they may lead you about in triumph through \"the Jerusalem above\"? [Galatians 4:26] If so be, then, that you long for all these things, conquer the body; conquer the appetites of the flesh; conquer the world in the Spirit of God; conquer these vain things of time, which pass away and grow old, and decay, and come to an end; conquer the dragon; [Revelation 12:7] conquer the lion; [1 Peter 5:8] conquer the serpent; [2 Corinthians 11:3] conquer Satan — through Jesus Christ, who does strengthen you by the hearing of His words and the divine Eucharist.<br/><i>— Two Epistles on Virginity</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem, \"let down from heaven,\" [Revelation 21:2] which the apostle also calls \"our mother from above;\" [Galatians 4:26] and, while declaring that our πολίτευμα, or citizenship, is in heaven, he predicates of it that it is really a city in heaven. This both Ezekiel had knowledge of [Ezekiel 48:30-35] and the Apostle John beheld. [Revelation 21:10-23] And the word of the new prophecy which is a part of our belief, attests how it foretold that there would be for a sign a picture of this very city exhibited to view previous to its manifestation. This prophecy, indeed, has been very lately fulfilled in an expedition to the East. For it is evident from the testimony of even heathen witnesses, that in Judæa there was suspended in the sky a city early every morning for forty days. As the day advanced, the entire figure of its walls would wane gradually, and sometimes it would vanish instantly. We say that this city has been provided by God for receiving the saints on their resurrection, and refreshing them with the abundance of all really spiritual blessings, as a recompense for those which in the world we have either despised or lost; since it is both just and God-worthy that His servants should have their joy in the place where they have also suffered affliction for His name's sake. Of the heavenly kingdom this is the process. After its thousand years are over, within which period is completed the resurrection of the saints, who rise sooner or later according to their deserts there will ensue the destruction of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgment: we shall then be changed in a moment into the substance of angels, even by the investiture of an incorruptible nature, and so be removed to that kingdom in heaven of which we have now been treating, just as if it had not been predicted by the Creator, and as if it were proving Christ to belong to the other god and as if he were the first and sole revealer of it.<br/><i>— Against Marcion, Book III, Chapter 25</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem, \"let down from heaven,\" which the apostle also calls \"our mother from above; \" and, while declaring that our poli/teuma, or citizenship, is in heaven, he predicates of it that it is really a city in heaven.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book III</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: I find it was in their foresight of all this, that the heavenly intelligences gazed with admiration on \"the Jerusalem which is above,\" and by the mouth of Isaiah said long ago: \"Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves with their young ones, unto me? \" Now, as Christ has prepared for us this ascension into heaven, He must be the Christ of whom Amos spoke: \"It is He who builds His ascent up to the heavens,\" even for Himself and His people.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"3314ac66eb68b4a1cbeaf725f75e0cde0a8d67e138fc662f7e92634bdcc25ab4","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5498,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"ec42ab52b106da39ddbeff8f84060af2924a7f1451e813ef7ba7482ca468d320","translator":null,"work":null}