{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-89","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":10,"chapter_to":10,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":32,"verse_to":32},"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>: Offense is given to the Jews when they see that a Christian, who claims the inheritance of the law and the prophets, is not afraid of idols, which they detest. Offense is given to the Greeks, that is, to the Gentiles, if their sin of idolatry is not only not contested but actually encouraged by people in the church who fail to reject things sacrificed to idols.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES</i></p><p><b>Basil of Caesarea</b>: Do all things decently and according to order for the purpose of edification. The person, the time, the need and the place all should be properly chosen and determined upon. By consideration of all these details every shadow of evil suspicion will be avoided.<br/><i>— THE LONG RULES 33</i></p><p><b>Basil of Caesarea</b>: Do not be a stumbling block in any way to those you meet. Be cheerful, a lover of the brethren, gentle, humble. Do not demean the aim of hospitality by seeking extravagant foods. Be content with what is at hand.<br/><i>— Letter 42</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"Give no occasion of stumbling, either to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the Church of God:\" i.e., give no handle to anyone: since in the case supposed, both thy brother is offended, and the Jew will the more hate and condemn thee, and the Gentile in like manner deride thee even as a gluttonous man and a hypocrite.</p><p>Not only, however, should the brethren receive no hurt from us, but to the utmost of our power not even those that are without. For if we are \"light,\" and \"leaven,\" and \"luminaries,\" and \"salt,\" we ought to enlighten, not to darken; to bind, not to loosen; to draw to ourselves the unbelievers, not to drive them away. Why then puttest thou to flight those whom thou oughtest to draw to thee? Since even Gentiles are hurt, when they see us reverting to such things: for they know not our mind nor that our Soul hath come to be above all pollution of sense. And the Jews too, and the weaker brethren, will suffer the same.</p><p>Seest thou how many reasons he hath assigned for which we ought to abstain from the idol-sacrifices? Because of their unprofitableness, because of their needlessness, because of the injury to our brother, because of the evil-speaking of the Jew, because of the reviling of the Gentile, because we ought not to be partakers with demons, because the thing is a kind of idolatry.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 25</i></p><p><b>Pseudo-Clement</b>: For the hearts of men are firmly set on evil. And, that we may not give a pretext to those who desire to get a pretext against us and to speak evil of us, and that we may not be a stumbling-block to any one, on this account we cut off the pretext of those who desire to get a pretext against us; on this account we must be \"on our guard that we be to no one a stumbling-block, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor yet to the Church of God; and we must not seek that which is profitable to ourselves only, but that which is for the profit of many, so that they may be saved.\" [1 Corinthians 10:32-33] For this does not profit us, that another stumble because of us. Let us, therefore, be studiously on our guard at all times, that we do not smite our brethren and give them to drink of a disquieting conscience through our being to them a stumbling-block. For \"if for the sake of meat our brother be made sad, or shocked, or made weak, or caused to stumble, we are not walking in the love of God. For the sake of meat thou causest him to perish for whose sake Christ died.\" [Romans 14:15] For, in \"thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their sickly consciences, ye sin against Christ Himself. For, if for the sake of meat my brother is made to stumble,\" let us who are believers say, \"Never will we eat flesh, that we may not make our brother to stumble.\" [1 Corinthians 8:12-13]<br/><i>— Two Epistles on Virginity, Epistle 2</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But the same apostle elsewhere bids us take care to please all: \"As I,\" he says, \"please all by all means.\" No doubt he used to please them by celebrating the Saturnalia and New-year's day! [Was it so] or was it by moderation and patience? by gravity, by kindness, by integrity? In like manner, when he is saying, \"I have become all things to all, that I may gain all,\" does he mean \"to idolaters an idolater? \"\"to heathens a heathen? \"\"to the worldly worldly? \"But albeit he does not prohibit us from having our conversation with idolaters and adulterers, and the other criminals, saying, \"Otherwise ye would go out from the world,\" of course he does not so slacken those reins of conversation that, since it is necessary for us both to live and to mingle with sinners, we may be able to sin with them too.<br/><i>— On Idolatry</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"ba0ff1985da6f82e677bed7092660a5781811ea3ee0c7b4d9292efd6ba3650e6","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":89,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"6311a44f2f2de0f8cca08b9fb462afc2647bff8597da66fe18dd9fa1bd0ab016","translator":null,"work":null}