{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4985","native_reference":{"book_number":330,"chapter_from":3,"chapter_to":3,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":3,"verse_to":3},"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>Cassiodorus</b>: Honey can be understood as the explicit teaching of wisdom, whereas the comb can represent that known to be stored in the depth, as it were, of the cells. Undoubtedly both are found in the divine Scriptures. They added \"to my mouth,\" for they were indeed proclaiming with their mouths the wisdom that they had swallowed with their throats. The prophet Ezekiel speaks in the same way of the Lord.<br/><i>— EXPOSITIONS OF THE Psalms 108:103</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: \"And he said to me: Son of man, your belly shall eat, and your bowels shall be filled with this scroll which I give to you.\"</p><p>In the old translation it does not have \"Your belly will eat,\" but \"Your mouth will eat, and your inward parts will be filled.\" For our mouth eats when we read the word of God; but our inward parts are filled when we understand and keep those things in which we labor by reading. In the later translation, however, which we also believe to be more accurate, it is written: \"Your belly will eat, and your inward parts will be filled.\" In sacred Scripture, indeed, the belly is customarily put for the mind. Hence through Jeremiah it is said: \"My belly, my belly, I am in pain.\" Because he had spoken this of the spiritual and not the bodily belly, he added: \"The senses of my heart are troubled.\" For it would not have pertained to the salvation of the people if the prophet had proclaimed that his bodily belly was in pain. But he suffered pain in his belly who felt affliction of mind. But why do we bring forward the example of the prophet, when we have a clearer testimony of the Lord? And it is necessary that when Truth speaks through Himself, the prophet be silent, because a lamp has no brightness in the sun. For He says: \"He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his belly.\" For since holy preachings flow from the mind of the faithful, rivers of living water, as it were, run down from the belly of believers. But what else are the inward parts of the belly except the interior things of the mind, that is, right intention, holy desire, a will humble toward God and dutiful toward neighbor? Hence it is now rightly said: \"Your belly will eat, and your inward parts will be filled,\" because when our mind has received the food of truth, our interior parts no longer remain empty, but are satisfied with the nourishment of life.<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 10</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: Let us consider, my dearest brothers, how gracious is that promise by which it is said: \"Your belly shall eat, and your bowels shall be filled with this scroll which I give you.\" For many read, and from that very reading they remain hungry. Many hear the voice of preaching, but after the voice they depart empty. Though their belly eats, their bowels are not filled, because even if they perceive in their mind the understanding of the sacred word, by forgetting and not keeping what they have heard, they do not store these things in the bowels of their heart. Hence it is that through another prophet the Lord rebukes certain people, saying: \"Set your hearts upon your ways. You have sown much, and brought in little; you have eaten, and have not been satisfied; you have drunk, and have not been inebriated.\" He sows much in his heart but brings in little who learns many things about the heavenly commandments either by reading or even by hearing, but by working negligently produces little fruit. He eats and is not satisfied who, hearing the words of God, desires the profits or glory of the world. And rightly is he said not to be satisfied, because he chews one thing and hungers for another. He drinks and is not inebriated who inclines his ear to the voice of preaching but does not change his mind. For through the inebriation of those who drink, the senses are usually changed. Therefore, he who is devoted to knowing the word of God but desires to obtain the things of this world drinks and is not inebriated. For if he had been inebriated, he would without doubt have changed his mind, so that he would no longer seek earthly things, and would no longer love the vain and transitory things he had loved. For of the elect it is said through the Psalmist: \"They shall be inebriated from the abundance of your house.\" Because they are so filled with the love of almighty God that with changed minds they seem to be strangers to themselves, fulfilling what is written: \"He who wishes to come after me, let him deny himself.\" He denies himself who is changed for the better and begins to be what he was not, and ceases to be what he was.</p><p>Often, however, we see certain people at the voice of preaching, as if compelled by conversion, change their habit but not their mind, so that they take up religious garb but do not trample down their former vices: they are savagely driven by the goads of anger, they burn with the pain of malice to injure their neighbor, they grow proud before human eyes over certain goods they have displayed, they greedily seek the profits of the present world, and they place their confidence of holiness solely in the outward habit they have assumed. What else should be said to them except what the excellent teacher says to certain people who observe the externals of the law, saying: \"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation\"? For it is not a matter of great merit if something is done outwardly to us in the body, but what is done in the mind must be carefully weighed.</p><p>For to despise the present world, not to love transitory things, to lay the mind deeply in humility before God and neighbor, to preserve patience against insults inflicted, and, while guarding patience, to repel the pain of malice from the heart, to give one's own goods to the needy, in no way to covet what belongs to others, to love a friend in God, to love even enemies for God's sake, to grieve over a neighbor's affliction, not to exult over the death of one who is an enemy—this is the new creature, which the same teacher of the Gentiles seeks among other disciples with a watchful eye, saying: \"If therefore there is any new creature in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new.\"</p><p>To seek the present world belongs indeed to the old man, to love transitory things from concupiscence, to raise the mind in pride, to have no patience, to think from the pain of malice about harming one's neighbor, not to give one's own goods to the needy, and to seek others' goods in order to multiply one's own, to love no one purely for God's sake, to return enmities for enmities, to rejoice at the affliction of one's neighbor. All these things belong to the old man, which indeed we draw from the root of corruption. But concerning the one who now overcomes these things and turns the mind to kindness according to the Lord's precepts, it is rightly said: Because the old things have passed away, behold all things are made new.</p><p>Then therefore new things come about in our minds when the vices of the old man pass away from us; and the vices of the old man pass away when the belly eats the precept of the sacred word and the inmost parts are filled to the marrow. For we have often seen certain people devote themselves with their whole mind to the study of holy reading, and, recognizing amid the Lord's words how greatly they had sinned, slaughter themselves in tears, be afflicted with continual grief, take delight in none of this world's prosperities, so that the present life became a burden to them and the very light became wearisome; scarcely admit common conversation, and relax their mind from the rigor of discipline with difficulty, for love of their Creator rejoicing only in mourning and silence. Their belly ate the sacred volume, and their inmost parts were filled, because the precepts of life which the understanding was able to grasp the memory did not lose, but the mind, gathered in God, preserved these by always mourning and recalling them.<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 10</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: And it often happens that such persons, through the gift of heavenly grace, also receive the word of doctrine, and from the food of truth which they themselves sweetly ruminate upon inwardly, they also sweetly feed their neighbors. From their mouth, indeed, preaching is sweet to their hearers insofar as their actions are not contrary to their preaching, because they draw from their own life what they bestow upon their neighbors through their tongue. Hence here too the prophet rightly adds: \"And I ate it, and it became in my mouth sweet like honey.\"</p><p>The book which filled his inward parts became sweet in his mouth like honey, because those who have learned to truly love the Almighty Lord in the depths of their heart know how to speak sweetly about Him. Indeed, Sacred Scripture is sweet in the mouth of one whose inward life is filled with His commandments, because it is pleasant to speak for one upon whom it has been inwardly impressed for living. For speech has no sweetness when a reprobate life gnaws at the conscience within. Hence it is necessary that whoever speaks the word of God should first attend to how he lives, so that he may afterwards gather from his life what he should say and how he should say it. For in preaching, the conscience of holy love builds up more than the exercise of speech, because by loving heavenly things the preacher reads within himself how he may persuade others that earthly things ought to be despised. For he who weighs his life inwardly and builds up others outwardly by admonishing them through his example, as it were dips the pen of his tongue in his heart, in that he writes externally to his neighbors with the hand of his word. Hence the admirable preacher, when he said many things in exhorting his disciples, because he bore no contradiction within himself from his conscience, confidently added: \"If there is any virtue, if there is any praise of discipline, think on these things; what you have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do these things, and the God of peace shall be with you.\"<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 10</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 3.) Your stomach will eat; and your bowels will be filled with that volume which I give to you. LXX: Your mouth will eat, and your stomach will be filled with that chapter given to you. The beginning of the reading, and of a simple story, is the essence of this volume. But when we have stored the book of the Lord in the treasure of our memory through constant meditation, our spiritual stomach is filled, and our bowels are satisfied, so that we may have, with the Apostle Paul, the bowels of mercy (Colossians 3), and that stomach may be filled of which Jeremiah speaks: My bowels, my bowels, I am pained at my very heart: my heart maketh a noise in me (Jeremiah 4).<br/><i>— Commentary on Ezekiel</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: Just as he contemplated that vision in spirit, so he now felt its taste in spirit.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Ezekiel 1:3</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"6ea6ff7cbd931fc7e8fe26bca9fe274cea989925f04c1471b8f9e1cda71441a3","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4985,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"ff7a2581bbbc63c3e62028690f6cdf2c56299c6744931f0b6b71efefe2a172c2","translator":null,"work":null}