Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

JUSTIN MARTYR:

You [Trypho, a Jew] object that Noah was ordered to make a distinction between the herbs, because we do not now eat every kind of herb. Such a conclusion is inadmissible. I could easily prove, but we will not spend the time now in doing so, that every vegetable is an herb and may be eaten. Now, if we make a distinction between them and refuse to eat some of them, we do so not because they are common and unclean but because they are bitter, or poisonous or thorny.¹

CHRYSOSTOM:

So since they were about to offer sacrifices in the form of animals, he is teaching them in these words that as long as the blood has been set aside for me, the flesh is for you. In doing so, however, he is intent upon resisting in advance any impulse toward homicide.²

If someone has committed countless murders and shed so much blood, how can he give adequate satisfaction simply by the shedding of his own blood? Do not have these thoughts, human being that you are. Instead you do well to consider in advance that you will receive an immortal body that will have the capacity to undergo constant and everlasting punishment.³

1. DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO 20.  Louth, A., & Conti, M. (Eds.). (2001). Genesis 1–11 (p. 151). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. HOMILIES ON GENESIS 27.13.  Louth, A., & Conti, M. (Eds.). (2001). Genesis 1–11 (p. 152). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. HOMILIES ON GENESIS 27.15.  Louth, A., & Conti, M. (Eds.). (2001). Genesis 1–11 (p. 152). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.