Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

ORIGEN:

The Savior, too, first granted you this very thing—that you should fall. You were a Gentile. Let the Gentile in you fall. You loved prostitutes. Let the lover of prostitutes in you perish first. You were a sinner. Let the sinner in you fall. Then you can rise again and say, “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him,” and, “If we have been made like him in death, we shall also be like him in resurrection.”¹

CHRYSOSTOM:

So also you are yourself made king and priest and prophet in the washing of baptism. You are a king by having dashed to earth all the deeds of wickedness and slain your sins. You are a priest in that you offer yourself to God, having sacrificed your body and being yourself slain also, “for if we died with him,” says he, “we shall also live with him.” You are a prophet, knowing what shall be, being inspired of God and sealed.²

AUGUSTINE:

The only thing the Almighty cannot do is what he does not will, in case anybody should consider it was very rash of me to say that the Almighty “cannot” do something. The blessed apostle said it too, “If we do not believe, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” But it is because he does not wish to that he cannot do it, because he cannot even have the will to. Justice, after all, cannot have the will to do what is unjust, or wisdom will what is foolish, or truth will what is false.³

AUGUSTINE:

God is all-powerful, and, since he is all-powerful, he cannot die, he cannot be deceived, he cannot lie, and, as the apostle says, “he cannot disown himself.” Very much he cannot do, yet he is all-powerful. It is because he cannot do these things for the very reason that he is all-powerful. If he could die, he would not be all-powerful. If he could lie, if he could be deceived, if he could deceive, if it were possible for him to do an injustice, he would not be omnipotent. If it were in him to do any of this, such acts would not be worthy of the Almighty. Absolutely omnipotent, our Father cannot sin.⁴

CHRYSOSTOM:

This he has well said. For many distort the text of Scripture and pervert it in every way, and many additions are made to it. He has not said “directing” but “rightly dividing,” that is, cutting away what is spurious, with much vehemence assailing it and extirpating it. With the sword of the Spirit cut off from your preaching, as from a thong, whatever is superfluous and foreign to it.⁵

AMBROSIASTER:

To teach the word of truth rightly is to speak it to men who wish to hear it and are peaceful in their hearing.⁶

PELAGIUS:

It is correct living that confirms the word and that interprets it rightly.⁷

1. HOMILIES ON LUKE 17.3. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 244). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. HOMILIES ON SECOND CORINTHIANS 3. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 245). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. Sermons 214.4. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 246). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
4. ON THE CREED 1.2. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (pp. 246–247). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
5. HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 5. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 249). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
6. COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 249). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
7. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 249). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.