{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4085","native_reference":{"book_number":250,"chapter_from":12,"chapter_to":12,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":7,"verse_to":7},"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>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Near the end of the book called Ecclesiastes there is a passage about the dissolution of man, brought about by that death through which the soul is separated from the body, where the Scripture says, \"And let the dust return into its earth, as it was, and the spirit return to God who gave it.\" This authoritative statement is unquestionably true and leads no one into error. But if anyone wished to interpret it so as to try to defend the view that there was a posterity of souls and that all the subsequent ones come from that one which God gave to the first man, this passage seems to support him. [This is so] because flesh is there spoken of as dust—obviously, dust and spirit mean nothing else in this passage than flesh and soul—and in that way it declares that the soul returns to God, as if it might be a sort of branch, cut from that soul which God gave to the first man, just as the flesh is returned to the earth, since it is an offshoot of that flesh that in the first man was fashioned of the earth. Thus, he might contend from this that we ought to believe something that is not known about the soul, but is perfectly well known about the body. There is no doubt about the propagation of the flesh, but there is about the soul.<br/><i>— LETTER 143</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: We ask that the will of God may be done both in heaven and in earth, each of which things pertains to the fulfillment of our safety and salvation. For since we possess the body from the earth and the spirit from heaven, we ourselves are earth and heaven; and in both—that is, both in body and spirit—we pray that God's will may be done.<br/><i>— Treatise IV. On the Lord's Prayer 4:16</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Evagrius said, 'While you sit in your cell, recall your attention, and remember the day of your death and you will see that your body is decaying. Think about the loss, feel the pain. Shrink from the vanity of the world outside. Be retiring, and be careful to keep your vow of quiet, and you will not weaken. Remember the souls in hell. Meditate on their condition, the bitter silence and the moaning, the fear and the strife, the waiting and the pain without relief, the tears that cannot cease to flow. Remember too the day of resurrection, imagine God's terrible and awful judgement. Bring into your sight the confusion of sinners before God and His Christ, before angels and archangels and powers, and all the human race, punishment, everlasting fire, the worm that never dies, the darkness of Tartarus – and above them all the sound of the gnashing of teeth, dread and torments. Bring before your eyes the good laid up for the righteous, their confidence before God the Father and Christ His Son, before angels and archangels and the powers, and all the people in the kingdom of heaven and its gifts, joy and peace. Remember all this. Weep and lament for the judgement of sinners, keep alert to the grief they suffer; be afraid that you are hurrying towards the same condemnation. Rejoice and exult at the good laid up for the righteous. Aim at enjoying the one, and being far from the other. Do not forget this, whether you are in your cell or outside it. Keep these memories in your mind and so cast out of it the sordid thoughts that harm you.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Neocaesarea</b>: For people lying on earth there is one salvation, if their souls acknowledge and fly up to the One by whom they were brought into being.<br/><i>— PARAPHRASE OF Ecclesiastes 12:7</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: \"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.\" He goes on more clearly: \"the dust will return to the earth, whence<br/>it was taken, and the spirit is returned to God, who gave it\". From which there is enough to smile at in<br/>those who think that spirits are produced with bodies, not from God, but are<br/>made from the parent's body. For when<br/>the flesh is returned to the earth, and the spirit goes back to God, who gave<br/>it; it is obvious that God is the parent of all spirits, not man.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ecclesiastes</i></p><p><b>John Cassian</b>: \"Before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it.\" What could be said more clearly than that the matter of the flesh, which he styled dust because it springs from the seed of man and seems to be sown by his acts, must again return to the earth because it was taken from the earth? At the same time he points out that the spirit which is not begotten by intercourse between the sexes, but belongs to God alone in a special way, returns to its creator. This too is clearly implied in that breathing by God, through which Adam in the first instance received his life.<br/><i>— CONFERENCE 8:25</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"711346d138f2a31d459980acee6b6978def19a1d4d5f54e50c522e64eb1bb90e","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4085,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"08a8331e4ea0291c6bded572a0e35309aefc4bacb63fad79c5df977f3a99ed60","translator":null,"work":null}