{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1609","native_reference":{"book_number":610,"chapter_from":1,"chapter_to":1,"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>Athanasius of Alexandria</b>: It is encouraging to the faithful but distressing to the heretical to see these heresies overthrown. Moreover, their further question, \"whether the Unoriginated be one or two,\" shows how false are their views, how treacherous and full of guile. It is not for the Father's honor that they say this but for the dishonor of the Word. Accordingly, if any one should answer, unaware of their craft, that \"the Unoriginated is one,\" they immediately spurt out their own venom, saying, \" 'Therefore the Son is among things originated,' and well have we said, 'He was not before his generation.' \" This in turn elicits all sorts of disturbances and confusions, separating the Son from the Father and reckoning the Framer of all among his works. Now first they may be convicted on this score, that, while blaming the Nicene bishops for their use of phrases not in Scripture, though these are not injurious but subversive of their irreligion, they themselves went off upon the same fault, that is, using words not in Scripture, and those that show contempt for the Lord, being \"without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions.\"<br/><i>— Discourses Against the Arians 1.9.30</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Two walls must adhere to the cornerstone in order to preserve \"the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace\"—one from the Jews and the other from the Gentiles. We mustn't let our minds be put off by the great number of reprobate Jews, among whom were the builders; those, that is, who \"wished to be teachers of the law,\" but as the apostle says about them, \"do not understand either what they are saying or the things about which they are making their assertions.\" It was as a result of this mental blindness, after all, that they rejected the stone which was put at the head of the corner. But it wouldn't be put at the head of the corner unless it offered to the two peoples coming from different points a peaceful joining, a coupling of grace.<br/><i>— SERMONS 204.3</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Let us, then, love not ourselves, but Him; and in feeding His sheep, let us be seeking the things which are His, not the things which are our own. For in some inexplicable way, I know not what, every one that loveth himself, and not God, loveth not himself; and whoever loveth God, and not himself, he it is that loveth himself. For he that cannot live by himself will certainly die by loving himself; he therefore loveth not himself who loves himself to his own loss of life. But when He is loved by whom life is preserved, a man by not loving himself only loveth the more, when it is for this reason that he loveth not himself [namely] that he may love Him by whom he lives. Let not those, then, who feed Christ's sheep be \"lovers of their own selves,\" lest they feed them as if they were their own, and not His, and wish to make their own gain of them, as \"lovers of money;\" or to domineer over them, as \"boastful;\" or to glory in the honors which they receive at their hands, as \"proud;\" or to go the length even of originating heresies, as \"blasphemers;\" and not to give place to the holy fathers, as those who are \"disobedient to parents;\" and to render evil for good to those who wish to correct them, because unwilling to let them perish, as \"unthankful;\" to slay their own souls and those of others, as \"wicked;\" to outrage the motherly bowels of the Church, as \"irreligious;\" to have no sympathy with the weak, as those who are \"without affection;\" to attempt to traduce the character of the saints, as \"false accusers;\" to give loose reins to the basest lusts, as \"incontinent;\" to make lawsuits their practice, as \"implacable;\" to know nothing of loving service, as those who are \"without kindness;\" to make known to the enemies of the godly what they are well aware ought to be kept secret, as \"traitors;\" to disturb human modesty by shameless discussions, as \"heady;\" to understand neither what they say nor whereof they affirm, as \"blinded;\" and to prefer carnal delights to spiritual joys, as those who are \"lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.\" For these and such like vices, whether all of them meet in a single individual, or whether some dominate in one and others in another, spring up in some form or another from this one root, when men are \"lovers of their own selves.\"<br/><i>— TRACTATES ON John 123.5</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: What, therefore, if the soul and spirit of a human being in like manner is given by God Himself, whenever it is given; and given, too, by propagation from its own kind? Now this is a position which I neither maintain nor refute. Nevertheless, if it must be defended or confuted, I certainly recommend its being done by clear, and not doubtful proofs. Nor do I deserve to be compared with senseless cattle because I avow myself to be as yet incapable of determining the question, but rather with cautious persons, because I do not recklessly teach what I know nothing about. But I am not disposed on my own part to return railing for railing and compare this man with brutes; but I warn him as a son to acknowledge that he is really ignorant of that which he knows nothing about; nor to attempt to teach that which he has not yet learnt, lest he should deserve to be compared with those persons whom the apostle mentions as \"desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.\"<br/><i>— On the Soul and Its Origin 1.16.26</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: For both the law and the Gospel are the energy of one Lord, who is \"the power and wisdom of God;\" and the terror which the law begets is merciful and in order to salvation. \"Let not alms, and faith, and truth fail thee, but hang them around thy neck.\" In the same way as Paul, prophecy upbraids the people with not understanding the law. \"Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.\" \"There is no fear of God before their eyes.\" \"Professing themselves wise, they became fools.\" \"And we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.\" \"Desiring to be teachers of the law, they understand,\" says the apostle, \"neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.\" \"Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 1</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Alexandria</b>: This, therefore, is the upright and most exact faith of the holy Fathers, that is, the confession of faith. But as Paul says, \"the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers that they should not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.\" Accordingly some, after having ceased to go along the straight road of truth, dash themselves against the rocks, \"when they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions.\" For after attributing the glory of the sonship only to the Word begotten of God the Father, they say that another son of the seed of David and Jesse has been conjoined to him and has a share in the filiation and of the glory proper to God and of the very indwelling of the Word and has had almost everything from him but has nothing at all of his own.<br/><i>— LETTERS 55.41</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"Desiring to be teachers of the law.\"</p><p>Here we see another cause of evil, the love of power. Wherefore Christ said, \"Be not ye called Rabbi\" (Matt. xxiii. 8); and the Apostle again, \"For neither do they keep the law, but that they may glory in your flesh.\" (Gal. vi. 13.) They desire preeminence, he means, and on that account disregard truth.</p><p>\"Understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.\"</p><p>Here he censures them, because they know not the end and aim of the Law, nor the period for which it was to have authority. But if it was from ignorance, why is it called a sin? Because it was incurred not only from their desiring to be teachers of the law, but from their not retaining love. Nay, and their very ignorance arose from these causes. For when the soul abandons itself to carnal things, the clearness of its vision is dimmed, and falling from love it drops into contentiousness, and the eye of the mind is blinded. For he that is possessed by any desire for these temporal things intoxicated, as he is, with passion, cannot be an impartial judge of truth. \"Not knowing whereof they affirm.\"</p><p>For it is probable that they spoke of the law, and enlarged on its purifications and other bodily rites. The Apostle then forbearing to censure these, as either nothing, or at best a shadow and figure of spiritual things, proceeds in a more engaging way to praise the law, calling the Decalogue here the law, and by means of it discarding the rest. For if even these precepts punish transgressors, and become useless to us, much more the others.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Timothy 2</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: desiring to be teachers of the law, not understanding either what they say or the matters about which they make confident claims.</p><p>desiring to be teachers of the law. Another excuse for failure. For not only, he says, does hostility lead to this, but also ambition for honor, which itself arises from hatred and envy.</p><p>not understanding either what they say. He wants to show that they truly came from love of power to wanting to be teachers. For neither do they know the law, nor about the things about which they make confident claims. For if they had known the law, they would have believed in Christ, which is also said elsewhere. \"Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not hear the law?\" (Gal. 4:21) For if they had known the law, they would certainly have believed that it leads to Christ.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON 1 TIMOTHY</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"14aa4b9cb31b9b8688584aae4031a36660e08c9c70e3dc033ff32d0b123f8f1c","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1609,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"d738699e1ce882ca7714fee68c748e580478d8e885e9e2c5665a5ea97504250f","translator":null,"work":null}