{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5487","native_reference":{"book_number":550,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":15,"verse_to":15},"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>Gaius Marius Victorinus</b>: You were satisfied at the time when you received the gospel, because you were zealous at the outset. Yet now, since I do not see the finishing of the edifice, I am forced to say, \"where is your satisfaction?\"<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 2.4.15-16</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 15,16.) So where is your happiness then? I testify to you: if it were possible, you would gouge out your eyes and give them to me. So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? Blessed is the one who walks on the path of virtues, but only if they have reached the virtues. It is not enough to have turned away from vices, unless you embrace the best. For the beginnings of good pursuits are not as commendable as the ends. For just as in a vineyard there are many stages of grapes until the winepress, and first it is necessary for the vine to bud on the vines, to promise hope in the blossoms; then, after the flower has fallen off, for the form of future clusters to be deformed, and gradually swelling, for the grape to give birth, so that it may sweat sweet musts when pressed in the winepresses. Similarly, in learning, there are individual stages of blessings, so that one may hear the word of God, conceive it, let it grow in the womb of their soul, and reach childbirth. So that when he has given birth to him, she may nourish him with milk, and throughout infancy, childhood, adolescence, and youth, she may lead him to perfect manhood. Therefore, since each, as we have said, has happiness according to their progress: if the end, and so to speak, the final touch is lacking to the work, the entire effort will be in vain; and it will be said: Where, then, is your happiness? Although, he says, at that time when you received the Gospel according to the flesh, I would call you blessed because you were fervent in your beginnings: nevertheless, now that I do not see the pinnacle of the building placed, and almost no foundation even laid, I am compelled to say: Where, then, is your happiness, which I used to praise you as blessed for? Truly, I myself also confess it, that when I was preaching to you in lowly terms, and was assailed by persecutions, you loved me in the beginning: And you would have plucked out your own eyes, if it were possible (but hyperbole must be understood in what he says), and have given them to me: You wished indeed to be blind for my sake, through the inexpressible charity you bore me, that more light of the Gospel might arise in my heart, and my advantage might increase by your loss: And this during that time, when I was preaching to you as it were to babes and sucklings, either from the infirmity of your flesh, because I announced to you things lowly and humble, or from the wrongs offered to me in my flesh, I seemed unworthy of your faith. But now because I have begun to challenge you to greater studies from the elements and syllables and childish reading, so that you may hold books in your hands, so that you may learn the words of full erudition and understanding, you resist, you get angry, you find the perfection of learning to be burdensome; and to such an extent have your feelings turned towards others, that you, who had received me as if I were an angel and Christ, to whom you wanted to entrust your eyes, now consider me an enemy, because I announce to you the full truth. But he elegantly concluded his statement, saying: So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? to show that at the beginning of his preaching, it was not so much the truth, but rather the shadow and image of truth. Similar to this is that famous saying of the Roman poet (Terence in Andria I, 1):</p><p>Obedience begets friends, but truth begets hatred. But see how much better this is than that; for the Apostle tempered and made special this sentiment when he directed it specifically to the Galatians. However, the person he denounced, claiming to have a general principle and to hold it against everyone, greatly erred. For obedience, without truth, is not so much obedience as flattery and assentation: which it is clear should be called secret enmities rather than friendships. However, at the same time, we must also consider that today, as long as they remain small and infants and in whose hearts Christ never grows, they do not progress in age, wisdom, and grace before God and men, as we explain according to the literal sense of Scripture, we are praised, suspected, admired. But when we begin to challenge them a little so that they may advance to greater things, our opponents become enemies of our preachers; and they would rather follow the Jews than the apostles, who, departing from the doctrine and traditions of the Pharisees, entered into Christ Himself, the propitiation and perfection of the Law: and they do not deign to receive the divine word, which commands the teachers of the Church to ascend to higher doctrines, and to elevate their voice with all their might, without fearing the noise of barking dogs, saying: 'Go up to a high mountain, you who evangelize Zion.' Exalt your voice in strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem. Exalt, do not be afraid. (Isaiah XL, 9).<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Here he shows perplexity and amazement, and desires to learn of themselves the reason of their change. Who, says he, hath deceived you, and caused a difference in your disposition towards me? Are ye not the same who attended and ministered to me, counting me more precious than your own eyes? what then has happened? whence this dislike? whence this suspicion? Is it because I have told you the truth? You ought on this very account to pay me increased honor and attention; instead of which \"I am become your enemy, because I tell you the truth,\"-for I can find no other reason but this. Observe too what humbleness of mind appears in his defence of himself; he proves not by his conduct to them, but by theirs to him that his language could not possibly have proceeded from unkind feeling. For he says not; How is it supposable that one, who has been scourged and driven about, and ill-treated a thousand things for your sakes, should now have schemes against you? But he argues from what they had reason to boast of, saying, How can one who has been honored by you, and received as an Angel, repay you by conduct the very opposite?<br/><i>— Homily on Galatians 4</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: — [PHOTIUS] \"Who then was the blessing to you?\" He was someone, not asked as a question, but as if marveling and lifting up their former faith and the blessing upon that faith. What it was, how great it was, wondrous, he says: from what great blessedness you have fallen. Or by interrogation, What was it? Remember, he says, how great your blessedness was: for I was blessing you very greatly; but now what? I reproach; therefore I am held in hatred. But why do I reproach? For your salvation. For if this were not so, how could I, without offering any other pretext of yours, the one who praises and blesses, have come to reproach?\" [end of the excerpt by Photius] —</p><p>\"the blessing to you.\" Who was, he says, the blessing to you, whom I and many others blessed you for, concerning obedience and submission to the Gospel? Who then was he? he says; for now I do not see him. Where, he says, are the zealously accomplished works of faith? for he has put the who instead of where.</p><p>\"your eyes.\" I know, Paul says, that you regard me as more precious than your own eyes because of my long-standing preaching.<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"b7fc3baa2d017985294f6b29671c9c952ba9cec886e50868bd5fe1a62700b85f","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5487,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"b41f38c357a0745e478be7c696b1494e53e00ce14a1cc9434c990ef48d313908","translator":null,"work":null}