{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-2320","native_reference":{"book_number":600,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"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>Augustine of Hippo</b>: We can recount many other events clearly showing that from a hidden judgment of God comes perversity of heart, with the result that refusal to hear the truth leads to commission of sin, and this sin is also punishment for preceding sin. For to believe a lie and not believe the truth is indeed sin, but it comes from the blindness of heart which by a hidden but just judgment of God is also punishment for sin. We see this also in what the apostle says to the Thessalonians, \"For they have not received the love of truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God sends them a misleading influence that they may believe falsehood.\"<br/><i>— AGAINST JULIAN 5.3.12</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: Nevertheless the profound gloom of the falling darkness has so blinded the hearts of some, that they receive no light from the wholesome precepts, but, once turned away from the direct path of the true way, they are hurried headlong and suddenly by the night and error of their sins.<br/><i>— Epistle LXIII</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: Not to recognize sins lest penance follow is the wrath of God, as it is written, \"And the Lord gave to them the spirit of a deep sleep,\" lest they actually return and be cured and healed by their lamentations and just satisfactions after their sins. The apostle Paul in his epistle states and says, \"For they have not received the love of truth that they might be saved. Therefore God will send them a misleading influence that they may believe falsehood, that all may be judged who have not believed the truth but have preferred wickedness.\" The first degree of happiness is not to sin; the second, to recognize the sins committed.<br/><i>— Epistle LIV.13</i></p><p><b>Fulgentius of Ruspe</b>: Sometimes by the hidden and incomprehensible judgment of God, the bad angels are permitted to make certain things to test the good and seduce the evil. Now the bad angels themselves do not create what they produce, but they are permitted to bring forth certain things, because these already exist hidden in the heart of God, things which we cannot see. Similarly, the devil was not able to create serpents or frogs, although with God's permission he produced them, just as he was not the creator of the fire when, to test Job, he, with fire falling from heaven, consumed his sheep together with the shepherds. Nor was he the creator of the wind, when a wicked wind blowing out of the desert, struck the four corners of the house and crushed all the children of holy Job in one simultaneous ruin. The omnipotent God alone created the various natures, that is, the elements of this world. In secret and hidden places, God places certain seeds of things, hidden to us but visible to the angels. From these, as the nature of the work and its own proper time require, by the hidden counsel of his wisdom, God either commands that certain things be produced by the good angels or permits them to be shown through the bad angels. By permitting these latter things, God shows how much power he has given to the holy angels when he has given the ability to do certain things in the material creation even to the wicked angels.… So it is [that] the blessed apostle, speaking of the Antichrist, says, \"And thus the lawless one will be revealed.\"<br/><i>— LETTERS TO SCARILA 10.46</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: \"But,\" say they, \"God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants.\" Those, then, who allege such difficulties, do not read in the Gospel that passage where the Lord replied to the disciples, when they asked Him, \"Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?\"-\"Because it is given unto you to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven; but to them I speak in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear, understanding they may not understand; in order that the prophecy of Isaiah regarding them may be fulfilled, Make the heart of this people gross and make their ears dull, and blind their eyes. But blessed are your eyes, which see the things that ye see; and your ears, which hear what ye do hear. For one and the same God [that blesses others] inflicts blindness upon those who do not believe, but who set Him at naught; just as the sun, which is a creature of His, [acts with regard] to those who, by reason of any weakness of the eyes cannot behold his light; but to those who believe in Him and follow Him, He grants a fuller and greater illumination of mind. In accordance with this word, therefore, does the apostle say, in the Second [Epistle] to the Corinthians: \"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine [unto them].\" And again, in that to the Romans: \"And as they did not think fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient.\" Speaking of antichrist, too, he says clearly in the Second to the Thessalonians: \"And for this cause God shall send them the working of error, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but consented to iniquity.\"</p><p>If, therefore, in the present time also, God, knowing the number of those who will not believe, since He foreknows all things, has given them over to unbelief, and turned away His face from men of this stamp, leaving them in the darkness which they have themselves chosen for themselves, what is there wonderful if He did also at that time give over to their unbelief, Pharaoh, who never would have believed, along with those who were with him?<br/><i>— Against Heresies Book 4</i></p><p><b>John Damascene</b>: One should know that the Antichrist must come. Antichrist, to be sure, is everyone who does not confess that the Son of God came in the flesh, is perfect God and became perfect man while at the same time he was God. In a peculiar and special sense, however, he who is to come at the consummation of the world is called Antichrist. So, it is first necessary for the gospel to have been preached to all the Gentiles, as the Lord said, and then God shall proceed to the conviction of the impious Jews.… \"Because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to let them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.\"<br/><i>— The Orthodox Faith 4.26</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: In this case how happens it that he can suborn the Creator's Christ to avenge his truth? But should he after all agree with us, that Antichrist is here meant, I must then likewise ask how it is that he finds Satan, an angel of the Creator, necessary to his purpose? Why, too, should Antichrist be slain by Him, whilst commissioned by the Creator to execute the function of inspiring men with their love of untruth? In short, it is incontestable that the emissary, and the truth, and the salvation belong to Him to whom also appertain the wrath, and the jealousy, and \"the sending of the strong delusion,\" on those who despise and mock, as well as upon those who are ignorant of Him; and therefore even Marcion will now have to come down a step, and concede to us that his god is \"a jealous god.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Thietland of Einsiedeln</b>: Note that the Apostle did not hesitate to say that God sends to them the working of error, since then God is said to send it, when He allows to send it with the Devil. For God permits the Devil to do this with a just and hidden judgment, because he acts unjust and uneven intention. But what follows, who have not believed in the truth, is similar to that passage of the same Apostle, \"because though they knew God they did not worship him as God or give Him thanks\" (Romans 1:21). And right after that, \"For that reason God gave them over to a reprobate frame of mind, that they may do those things which are not fitting.\" (Romans 1:28) Nevertheless, we must note that those who were judged shall be deceived, secretly by the just judgments of God, whom God himself did not cease to judge since the beginning of the sin of the rational creature. Even those who were described and led astray shall be justified at the last and open judgment of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who, having been judged most unjustly, shall judge most justly.</p>","source_html_sha256":"91cc5eea0ef8fdb0b4374e50e634098ba25160a4cb21d67492e4dee510eee818","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":2320,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"5db17d31bd8d14d5a3afb667ee882e300dc6673b9e528300fe9a9f63ff96d8e0","translator":null,"work":null}