{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5518","native_reference":{"book_number":550,"chapter_from":5,"chapter_to":5,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":15,"verse_to":15},"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>: What, then, is that-how execrable should it appear to you-which I have learnt with extreme anguish and grief of mind, to wit, that there are not wanting those who defile the temples of God, and the members sanctified after confession and made glorious, with a disgraceful and infamous concubinage, associating their beds promiscuously with women's! In which, even if there be no pollution of their conscience, there is a great guilt in this very thing, that by their offence originate examples for the ruin of Others. There ought also to be no contentions and emulations among you, since the Lord left to us His peace, and it is written, \"Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself.\" \"But if ye bite and find fault with one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.\" From abuse and revilings also I entreat you to abstain, for \"revilers do not attain the kingdom of God; \" and the tongue which has confessed Christ should be preserved sound and pure with its honour. For he who, according to Christ's precept, speaks things peaceable and good and just, daily confesses Christ. We had renounced the world when we were baptized; but we have now indeed renounced the world when tried and approved by God, we leave all that we have, and have followed the Lord, and stand and live in His faith and fear.<br/><i>— Epistle VI</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: Paul is not here erupting suddenly into ad hoc legal precepts against the tenor and sequence of the whole letter. He is still discussing circumcision and the observance of the law.… If you read the whole Old Testament and understand it according to the text \"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth\" … what appears as justice will eat you away, not avenging anything but consuming everything.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 3.5.15</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 15) But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you are not consumed by one another. This can be understood simply as not tearing each other down, not seeking revenge with curses, not wanting to cause sorrow to the sorrowful, and being like animals, biting and being bitten, leading to destruction and consumption. However, it is better to understand this in the context of the entire letter and according to reason, rather than suddenly breaking into extraordinary commands. Let us refer everything to circumcision and observance of the Law. If others, he says, disturb you, but you are also disturbed. If you read the whole old Scripture, understand it in the way it is written: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth (Deut. XIX, 21), and anger desires revenge, but revenge imposes pain: which the Law not only does not prohibit, but even commands, restoring justice in talion, it follows that the stripped should strip, and the wounded should wound again, and the consumed should bite back, and what seems to be justice should be consumption, not avenging one, but consuming both.<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: That he may not distress them, he does not assert this, though he knew it was the case, but mentions it ambiguously. For he does not say, \"Inasmuch as ye bite one another,\" nor again does he assert, in the clause following, that they shall be consumed by each other; but \"take heed that ye be not consumed one of another,\" and this is the language of apprehension and warning, not of condemnation. And the words which he uses are expressly significant; he says not merely, \"ye bite,\" which one might do in a passion, but also \"ye devour,\" which implies a bearing of malice. To bite is to satisfy the feeling of anger, but to devour is a proof of the most savage ferocity. The biting and devouring he speaks of are not bodily, but of a much more cruel kind; for it is not such an injury to taste the flesh of man, as to fix one's fangs in his soul. In proportion as the soul is more precious than the body, is damage to it more serious. \"Take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.\" For those who commit injury and lay plots, do so in order to destroy others; therefore he says, Take heed that this evil fall not on your own heads. For strife and dissensions are the ruin and destruction as well of those who admit as of those who introduce them, and eats out every thing worse than a moth does.<br/><i>— Homily on Galatians 5</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"But if you bite and devour one another.\" And by \"to bite\" he says even more emphatically \"to devour,\" inserting doctrines of this sort. For not so much body is expended by being devoured as the soul is corrupted by such doctrines.</p><p>\"be careful for fear that.\" But he was terrified by this.</p><p>\"that you be consumed by one another.\" For this faction, he says, also has it in its power to harm you who are causing the disturbance. It is reasonable that he indicates this not only concerning doctrines, but also regarding clashes, and greed, and other injustices.<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: Here Paul hints that, while some had been circumcised under duress, others had relied on their faith and stood firm. Nevertheless, they were at odds, some praising the legalistic way of life, others showing due admiration for the gifts of grace. For this reason Paul focuses his attention on the exhortation to love.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 5.15</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"b0c66786f0f70d8d318d4d4b08df364df5c5fe6f92e215c7c54036f96e46c9a9","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5518,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"e72147fbc38c9ca6ba7250b3c63c1f727e3fbceb8e00af60fdfbe2bf0a02fce7","translator":null,"work":null}