{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6572","native_reference":{"book_number":650,"chapter_from":12,"chapter_to":12,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":11,"verse_to":11},"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>Cosmas Indicopleustes</b>: For no chastening, saith scripture, seemeth for the present to be joyous but grievous: On those accordingly, who have been rationally tested, he has decreed to bestow afterwards in the future state his good things that are everlasting, and to fulfil what has been his primary purpose from the beginning—having taken, as God, a providential care of what concerns us, as became him, and as was for our advantage.<br/><i>— The Christian Topography, Book 5</i></p><p><b>Cosmas Indicopleustes</b>: All discipline, seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous; for without discipline and suffering it is impossible there can be learning. For the purpose of discipline therefore, He made this world mortal and mutable and diversified, in order that by the affliction of learning and the variety of the universe, we may, by this experience, ascend to the knowledge of God.<br/><i>— The Christian Topography, Book 7</i></p><p><b>Ephrem the Syrian</b>: They gain a profit from it: their reward is justice. Paul said this in order to prove that even though they gain a profit through discipline, their reward and grace is constituted by justice.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: They who drink bitter medicines, first submit to some unpleasantness, and afterwards feel the benefit. For such is virtue, such is vice. In the latter there is first the pleasure, then the despondency: in the former first the despondency, and then the pleasure. But there is no equality; for it is not the same, to be first grieved and afterwards pleased, and to be first pleased and afterwards grieved. How so? because in the latter case the expectation of coming despondency makes the present pleasure less: but in the former the expectation of coming pleasure cuts away the violence of present despondency; so that the result is that in the one instance we never have pleasure, in the latter we never have grief.<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 30</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Ye are suffering, he says. For such is chastisement; such is its beginning. For \"no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.\" Well said he, \"seemeth not,\" Chastisement he means is not grievous but \"seemeth\" so. \"All chastisement\": not this and that, but \"all,\" both human and spiritual. Seest thou that he argues from our common notions? \"Seemeth\" (he says) \"to be grievous,\" so that it is not really so. For what sort of grief brings forth joy? So neither does pleasure bring forth despondency.</p><p>\"Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them which have been exercised thereby.\" Not \"fruit\" but \"fruits,\" a great abundance.</p><p>\"To them\" (he says) \"which have been exercised thereby.\" What is \"to them which have been exercised thereby\"? To them that have endured for a long while, and been patient. And he uses an auspicious expression. So then, chastisement is exercise, making the athlete strong, and invincible in combats, irresistible in wars.</p><p>If then \"all chastisement\" be such, this also will be such: so that we ought to look for good things, and for a sweet and peaceful end. And do not wonder if, being itself hard, it has sweet fruits; since in trees also the bark is almost destitute of all quality, and rough; but the fruits are sweet. But he took it from the common notion. If therefore we ought to look for such things, why do ye vex yourselves? Why, after ye have endured the painful, do ye despond as to the good? The distasteful things which ye had to endure, ye endured: do not then despond as to the recompense.<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 30</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"085bce0b3b8040208c522230fcdbd0c7cc9b78424318c24c8b967673d6e0021b","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6572,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"7f7c1e2df07c1d78aaba420e5ed430a720d912401fa6f45ac2a7e4939663b4e1","translator":null,"work":null}