{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4347","native_reference":{"book_number":560,"chapter_from":6,"chapter_to":6,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":1,"verse_to":1},"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>: This law is given to children: Since their parents are the enablers of their existence, they are to obey them. The principle is that they reverence those through whom they exist.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Ephesians 6.2</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: That we must obey parents.</p><p>In the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians: \"Children, be obedient to your parents: for this is right. Honour thy father and thy mother (which is the first command with promise), that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be long-lived on the earth.\"<br/><i>— Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews</i></p><p><b>Ignatius of Antioch</b>: Let the husbands love their wives, remembering that, at the creation, one woman, and not many, was given to one man. Let the wives honour their husbands, as their own flesh; and let them not presume to address them by their names. Let them also be chaste, reckoning their husbands as their only partners, to whom indeed they have been united according to the will of God. Ye parents, impart a holy training to your children. Ye children, \"honour your parents, that it may be well with you.\"<br/><i>— Epistle of Pseudo-Ignatius to the Antiochians</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: It is not clear whether this saying means that children are to obey their \"parents in the Lord\" or that in the Lord children are to obey their parents. I take it both ways. We are to obey those parents who gave birth to us in the Lord, as through Paul and the apostles they were spiritually born, and do what they say. And we should submit in the Lord to our own parents, from whom we were born according to the flesh, performing all their commands that are not contrary to the Lord's will.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ephesians 6:1</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: As a man in forming a body, places the head first, after that the neck, then the feet, so does the blessed Paul proceed in his discourse. He has spoken of the husband, he has spoken of the wife, who is second in authority, he now goes on by gradual advances to the third rank-which is that of children. For the husband has authority over the wife, and the husband and the wife over the children.</p><p>Here he has not a word of discourse concerning Christ, not a word on high subjects, for he is as yet addressing his discourse to tender understandings. And it is for this reason, moreover, that he makes his exhortation short, inasmuch as children cannot follow up a long argument. For this reason also he does not discourse at all about a kingdom, (because it does not belong to the tender age of childhood to understand these subjects,) but what a child's soul most especially longs to hear, that he says, namely, that it shall \"live long.\" For if any one shall enquire why it is that he omitted to discourse concerning a kingdom, but set before them the commandment laid down in the law, he does this because he speaks to them as infantile, and because he is well aware that if the husband and the wife are thus disposed according to the law which he has laid down, there will be but little trouble in securing the submission of the children. For whenever any matter has a good and sound and orderly principle and foundation, everything will thenceforward go on with method and regularity, with much facility: the more difficult thing is to settle the foundation, to lay down a firm basis. \"Children,\" saith he, \"obey your parents in the Lord,\" that is, according to the Lord. This, he means to say, is what God commands you. But what then if they shall command foolish things? Generally a father, however foolish he may be himself, does not command foolish things. However, even in that case, the Apostle has guarded the matter, by saying, \"in the Lord\"; that is, wherever you will not be offending against God. So that if the father be a gentile or a heretic, we ought no longer to obey, because the command is not then, \"in the Lord.\" But how is it that he says, \"Which is the first commandment\"? For the first is, \"Thou shalt not commit adultery;-Thou shalt not kill.\" He does not speak of it then as first in rank, but in respect of the promise. For upon those others there is no reward annexed, as being enacted with reference to evil things, and to departure from evil things. Whereas in these others, where there is the practice of good, there is further a promise held out. And observe how admirable a foundation he has laid for the path of virtue, that is, honor and reverence towards parents. When he would lead us away from wicked practices, and is just about to enter upon virtuous ones, this is the first thing he enjoins, honor towards parents; inasmuch as they before all others are, after God, the authors of our being, so that it is reasonable they should be the first to reap the fruits of our right actions; and then all the rest of mankind. For if a man have not this honor for parents he will never be gentle toward those unconnected with him.<br/><i>— Homily on Ephesians 21</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: The order in which he gives his injunctions is worthy of admiration. For first he has given laws to husbands and wives, for marriage comes before childbirth. Then he tends to fathers and children, for childbirth is the fruit of marriage, since it is only after the birth that one is called a father and one called son. Finally he has set forth his instructions to servants and masters. This arises from the social environment, as distinguished from those arrangements that come about under the laws of nature. Thus, having given all these specific injunctions, he once again gives them a common one.<br/><i>— Interpretation of the Epistle to the Ephesians 6.9</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"6e86b4424fd7a02334067c710536d8bce6e6cd4e3c7a859db9ded30cfe2c6188","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4347,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"652f88ffc001693c4c5d0fe13a89aa1da779174035f74b7113680990d96f9720","translator":null,"work":null}