{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4355","native_reference":{"book_number":560,"chapter_from":6,"chapter_to":6,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":9,"verse_to":9},"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>Cyprian</b>: Moreover, that masters should be the more gentle. Also in the same place: \"And, ye masters, do the same things to them, forbearing anger: knowing that both your Master and theirs is in heaven; and there is no choice of persons with Him.\"<br/><i>— Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: Serving is to be done \"in singleness of heart.\" One is called to \"do the will of God\" and to do it \"with a good will,\" that is, with benevolence from the heart. Everyone will finally receive just judgment from the Lord for whatever good he has done. If he has served as a lowly one in the household, he will be judged justly according to his responsibility. The master of the household is not to be overbearing, not quick to punish. He should know that he too has a master in heaven who will judge justly, who will judge fairly according to our own willing, who will judge by deeds, not status.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ephesians 6:9</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"And ye masters,\" he continues, \"do the same things unto them.\"</p><p>The same things. What are these? \"With good-will do service.\" However he does not actually say, \"do service,\" though by saying, \"the same things,\" he plainly shows this to be his meaning. For the master himself is a servant. \"Not as men-pleasers,\" he means, \"and with fear and trembling\": that is, toward God, fearing lest He one day accuse you for your negligence toward your slaves.</p><p>\"And forbear threatening;\" be not irritating, he means, nor oppressive.</p><p>\"Knowing that both their Master and yours is in Heaven.\" Ah! How mighty a Master does he hint at here! How startling the suggestion! It is this. \"With what measure thou metest, it shall be measured unto thee again\"; lest thou hear the sentence, \"Thou wicked servant. I forgave thee all that debt.\"</p><p>\"And there is no respect of persons,\" he saith, \"with Him.\"</p><p>Think not, he would say, that what is done towards a servant, He will therefore forgive, because done to a servant. Heathen laws indeed as being the laws of men, recognize a difference between these kinds of offenses. But the law of the common Lord and Master of all, as doing good to all alike, and dispensing the same rights to all, knows no such difference.</p><p>But should any one ask, whence is slavery, and why it has found entrance into human life, (and many I know are both glad to ask such questions, and desirous to be informed of them,) I will tell you. Slavery is the fruit of covetousness, of degradation, of savagery; since Noah, we know, had no servant, nor had Abel, nor Seth, no, nor they who came after them. The thing was the fruit of sin, of rebellion against parents. Let children hearken to this, that whenever they are undutiful to their parents, they deserve to be servants. Such a child strips himself of his nobility of birth; for he who rebels against his father is no longer a son; and if he who rebels against his father is not a son, how shall he be a son who rebels against our true Father? He has departed from his nobility of birth, he has done outrage to nature. Then come also wars, and battles, and take their prisoners. Well, but Abraham, you will say, had servants. Yes, but he used them not as servants.</p><p>Observe how everything depends upon the head; the wife, by telling him \"to love her\"; the children, by telling him \"to bring them up in the chastening and admonition of the Lord\"; the servants, by the words, \"knowing that both their Master and yours is in Heaven.\" So, saith he, ye also in like manner, as being yourselves servants, shall be kind and indulgent.<br/><i>— Homily on Ephesians 22</i></p><p><b>Peter of Alexandria</b>: But the freemen shall be tried by penance for three years, both for their dissimulation, and for having compelled their fellow-servants to offer sacrifice, inasmuch as they have not obeyed the apostle, who would have the masters do the same things unto the servant, forbearing threatening; knowing, says he, that our and their Master is in heaven; and that there is no respect of persons with Him. Now, if we all have one Master, with whom is no respect of persons, since Christ is all and in all, in barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, they ought to consider what they have done, wishing to preserve their own lives. They have drawn their fellow-servants to idolatry who would have been able to escape, had they given to them that which is just and equal, as again says the apostle.<br/><i>— Peter of Alexandria Canonical Epistle</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: For each individual lives by his own faith, nor is there exception of persons with God; since it is not hearers of the law who are justified by the Lord, but doers, according to what the apostle withal says. Therefore, if you have the right of a priest in your own person, in cases of necessity, it behoves you to have likewise the discipline of a priest whenever it may be necessary to have the fight of a priest.<br/><i>— On Exhortation to Chastity</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"760c19e2db3c11942567db645ec268c1e9e51b7542bb85d609e7961f1911891a","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4355,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"69556180be9b57a7b911bf7e21e310ae1e57c846d86e402234ebffb6b56339c4","translator":null,"work":null}