{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4294","native_reference":{"book_number":560,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":13,"verse_to":13},"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>: He exhorts them to strive to attain to the perfecting of faith, the essence of which is to hold fast to Christ as true and perfect God. Do not measure him by some human measure. Measure yourself by regarding him as perfect God in the fullness of his deity. When he refers to a mature man he does not mean a span of years or physical stature but a maturation into the full understanding of the divinity of the Son of God.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Ephesians 4.13</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: And writing to the Ephesians, he has unfolded in the clearest manner the point in question, speaking to the following effect: \"Till we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we be no longer children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by the craft of men, by their cunning in stratagems of deceit; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up to Him in all things,\" -saying these things in order to the edification of the body of Christ, who is the head and man, the only one perfect in righteousness; and we who are children guarding against the blasts of heresies, which blow to our inflation; and not putting our trust in fathers who teach us otherwise, are then made perfect when we are the church, having received Christ the head.<br/><i>— The Instructor Book 1</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Such are the preparatory exercises of gnostic discipline. And since the omnipotent God Himself \"gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;\" we are then to strive to reach manhood as befits the Gnostic, and to be as perfect as we can while still abiding in the flesh, making it our study with perfect concord here to concur with the will of God, to the restoration of what is the truly perfect nobleness and relationship, to the fulness of Christ, that which perfectly depends on our perfection.<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 4</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Now there are some who say that three hundred cubits are the symbol of the Lord's sign; and fifty, of hope and of the remission given at Pentecost; and thirty, or as in some, twelve, they say points out the preaching [of the Gospel]; because the Lord preached in His thirtieth year; and the apostles were twelve. And the structure's terminating in a cubit is the symbol of the advancement of the righteous to oneness and to \"the unity of the faith.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 6</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Since, according to my opinion, the grades here in the Church, of bishops, presbyters, deacons, are imitations of the angelic glory, and of that economy which, the Scriptures say, awaits those who, following the footsteps of the apostles, have lived in perfection of righteousness according to the Gospel. For these taken up in the clouds, the apostle writes, will first minister [as deacons], then be classed in the presbyterate, by promotion in glory (for glory differs from glory) till they grow into \"a perfect man.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 6</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: But, on the other hand, they allowed him who had been delighted with vice to consort with the objects of his choice; and, on the other hand, that the soul, which is ever improving in the acquisition of virtue and the increase of righteousness, should obtain a better place in the universe, as tending in each step of advancement towards the habit of impassibility, till \"it come to a perfect man,\" to the excellence at once of knowledge and of inheritance.<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 7</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: The cause of these, then, is love, of all science the most sacred and most sovereign. For by the service of what is best and most exalted, which is characterized by unity, it renders the Gnostic at once friend and son, having in truth grown \"a perfect man, up to the measure of full stature.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 7</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Now, of what I may call the passionlessness which we attribute to the Gnostic (in which the perfection of the believer, \"advancing by love, comes to a perfect man, to the measure of full stature,\" by being assimilated to God, and by becoming truly angelic), many other testimonies from the Scripture, occur to me to adduce.<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 7</i></p><p><b>Cosmas Indicopleustes</b>: Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. But they will yet again question us on this point: How does one who is diminutive in body rise perfect? And how can the maimed and the lame or he that is mutilated in one of his limbs rise up sound and quite perfect? Let them listen to us replying from scripture and from what is seen in Nature thus: Just as God took Adam's rib, a very small member of his body, and constructed out of it a perfect woman, mysteriously supplying what was deficient; and just as a man and woman copulate, of whom one or the other is, as is often the case, blind or maimed, and their offspring is born sound and entire, so it is to be believed and understood with respect to the resurrection of the dead, in which we are born anew from the tomb into a better birth than from the womb.<br/><i>— The Christian Topography, Book 7</i></p><p><b>Hippolytus of Rome</b>: For there is also one Son (or Servant) of God, by whom we too, receiving the regeneration through the Holy Spirit, desire to come all unto one perfect and heavenly man.<br/><i>— Hippolytus Dogmatical and Historical Fragments</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: We must ask: Who are the all whom he speaks of \"coming together in the unity of faith\"? Does he mean all the people of God or all saints? Or rather all who are capable of reason? He seems to me to be speaking of all the people of God because there are so \"many winds of doctrine\" blowing about them. When these blasts and billows are aroused, people in general are carried here and there by diverse errors, uncertain of their course.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ephesians 4:13</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: According to the traditions of the church and the apostle Paul, our resurrection will \"be into a mature man and the stature of the fullness of Christ.\" This is the state in which the Jews claim that Adam was created and in which we have read that the Lord rose.<br/><i>— LETTER 108.25.3-4</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: By \"stature\" here he means perfect \"knowledge\"; for as a man will stand firmly, whereas children are carried about and waver in mind, so is it also with believers. \"To the unity,\" saith he, \"of the faith.\" That is, until we shall be shown to have all one faith: for this is unity of faith, when we all are one, when we shall all alike acknowledge the common bond. Till then thou must labor to this end. If for this thou hast received a gift, that thou mightest edify others, look well that thou overturn not thyself, by envying another. God hath honored thee, and ordained thee, that thou shouldest build up another. Yea, for about this was the Apostle also engaged; and for this was the prophet prophesying and persuading, and the Evangelist preaching the Gospel, and for this was the pastor and teacher; all had undertaken one common work. For tell me not of the difference of the spiritual gifts; but that all had one work. Now when we shall all believe alike then shall there be unity; for that this is what he calls \"a perfect man,\" is plain. And yet he elsewhere calls us \"babes,\" even when we are of mature age; but he is there looking to another comparison, for there it is in comparison with our future knowledge that he there calls us babes. For having said, \"We know in part,\" he adds also the word \"darkly,\" and the like: whereas here he speaks with reference to another thing, with reference to changeableness, as he saith also elsewhere, \"But solid food is for full-grown men.\" Do you see then also in what sense he there calls them full-grown? Observe also in what sense he calls men \"perfect\" here, by the words next added, where he says, \"that we may be no longer children.\" That we keep, he means to say, that little measure, which we may have received, with all diligence, with firmness and steadfastness.<br/><i>— Homily on Ephesians 11</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: Two ages are spoken of in the Scriptures: one of the body, which is not in our power but in the law of nature; the other of the soul, which properly lies within us, and according to which, if we will, we daily grow and come to its summit, \"so that we may be no longer little children, tossed about and carried around by every wind of doctrine\", but, ceasing to be \"little children\", may begin to be \"men\" and may say: \"when I became a man, I destroyed the things that belonged to a little child\". Of this age, as I said, the advancement, which is the increase of the soul, is in our power. But if this testimony is not enough, let us take yet another example from Paul: \"until we all attain\", he says, \"to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of the body of Christ\". It is in us, therefore, that we should \"attain to the measure of the age of the body of Christ\"; and, if it is in us, let us strive with all effort to lay aside the little child and to destroy him and to come to the remaining ages.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF Luke 20</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: For so long as abominable passions envelop a man like an after-birth, and fetter the limbs of the new man, his growth is impeded, and the man is not able to arrive at that measure of stature which is given by Christ, and concerning which Paul said, \"We all grow and become one thing in the knowledge of the Son of God, and one perfect man, in the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.\" Now unless a man hath gone forth from the world he is not able to arrive at this measure, and unless he hath first cast off all the conversation of the body he is not able to arrive at the knowledge by which he will perceive the greatness of these things which are given in a mystery by Christ.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 9 -- Second Discourse on Poverty</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: In the future life we shall attain perfection. But in the present life we need all the help we can get from the apostles, the prophets and our teachers.<br/><i>— Interpretation of the Epistle to the Ephesians 4.13</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"0986fb176c1f9a45470a17c73ae59175fad88f4260f13426fef72c9f9388e738","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4294,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"477b4a72df612fd04650e60c798dbdbc46633a5f1fc60878a8047fdaf52d0e8c","translator":null,"work":null}