Matt. 5:13-16 (Part 2)
5:14ff THE DIDACHE: Watch for your life’s sake. Do not let your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed, but be ready, for you do not know the hour in which our Lord comes. But often you shall come together, seeking the things which are befitting to your souls: for the whole time of your faith will not profit you, if you are not made perfect in the last time. 7.382.
IRENAEUS: He is therefore one and the same God, who called Abraham and gave him the promise. But He is the Creator, who does also through Christ prepare lights in the world, namely those who believe from among the Gentiles. And He says, “You are the light of the world;” that is, as the stars of heaven. Him, therefore, I have rightly shown to be known by no man, unless by the Son, and to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him.23 But the Son reveals the Father to all to whom He wills that He should be known; and neither without the goodwill of the Father nor without the agency of the Son, can any man know God. Therefore the Lord said to His disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life and no man comes to the Father but by Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also: and from this time on you have both known Him, and have seen Him.” From these words it is evident, that He is known by the Son, that is, by the Word. Against Heresies, 1.470.
ORIGEN: Our earnest desire is both to see for ourselves, and to be leaders of the blind, to bring them to the Word of God, that He may take away from their minds the blindness of ignorance. And if our actions are worthy of Him who taught His disciples, “You are the light of the world,” and of the Word, who says, “The light shines in darkness,” then we shall be light to those who are in darkness; we shall give wisdom to those who are without it, and we shall instruct the ignorant. Against Celsus, 4.632.
ORIGEN: The reader will do well to consider what was said above and illustrated from various quarters on the question what is meant in Scripture by the word “world;” and I think it proper to repeat this. I am aware that a certain scholar understands by the world the Church alone, since the Church is the adornment of the world, and is said to be the light of the world. “You,” he says, “are the light of the world.” Now, the adornment of the world is the Church, Christ being her adornment, who is the first light of the world. We must consider if Christ is said to be the light of the same world as His disciples. . . . Should any one consider that the Church is called the light of the world, meaning thereby of the rest of the race of men, including unbelievers, this may be true if the assertion is taken prophetically and theologically; but if it is to be taken of the present, we remind him that the light of a thing illuminates that thing, and would ask him to show how the remainder of the race is illuminated by the Church’s presence in the world. If those who hold the view in question cannot show this, then let them consider if our interpretation is not a sound one, that the light is the Church, and the world those others who call on the Name. Commentary on the Gospel of John, 9.380.
5:15 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Now the Scripture kindles the living spark of the soul, and directs the eye suitably for contemplation; perchance inserting something, as the husbandman when he ingrafts, but, according to the opinion of the divine apostle, exciting what is in the soul. “For there are certainly among us many weak and sickly, and many sleep. But if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged.” Now this work of mine in writing is not artfully constructed for display; but my memoranda are stored up against old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness, truly an image and outline of those vigorous and animated discourses which I was privileged to hear, and of blessed and truly remarkable men. Of these the one, in Greece, an Ionic; the other in Magna Graecia: the first of these from Coele-Syria, the second from Egypt, and others in the East. The one was born in the land of Assyria, and the other a Hebrew in Palestine.
When I came upon the last (he was the first in power), having tracked him out concealed in Egypt, I found rest. He, the true, the Sicilian bee, gathering the spoil of the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, engendered in the souls of his hearers a deathless element of knowledge.
Well, they preserving the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul, the sons receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), came by God’s will to us also to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds. And well I know that they will exult; I do not mean delighted with this tribute, but solely on account of the preservation of the truth, according as they delivered it. For such a sketch as this, will, I think, be agreeable to a soul desirous of preserving from escape the blessed tradition. “In a man who loves wisdom the father will be glad.” Wells, when pumped out, yield purer water; and that of which no one partakes, turns to putrefaction. Use keeps steel brighter, but disuse produces rust in it. For, in a word, exercise produces a healthy condition both in souls and bodies. “No one lights a candle, and puts it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may give light to those who are regarded worthy of the feast.” For what is the use of wisdom, if it does not make him who can hear it wise? For still the Savior saves, “and always works, as He sees the Father.” For by teaching, one learns more; and in speaking, one is often a hearer along with his audience. For the teacher of him who speaks and of him who hears is one—who waters both the mind and the word. Thus the Lord did not hinder from doing good while keeping the Sabbath; but allowed us to communicate of those divine mysteries, and of that holy light, to those who are able to receive them. He did not certainly disclose to the many what did not belong to the many; but to the few to whom He knew that they belonged, who were capable of receiving and being moulded according to them. But secret things are entrusted to speech, not to writing, as is the case with God. The Stromata, 2.301-302.
TERTULLIAN: Openly did the Lord speak,30 without any indication of a hidden mystery. He had Himself commanded that, “whatsoever they had heard in darkness” and in secret, they should “declare in the light and on the house- tops. He had Himself foreshown, by means of a parable, that they should not keep back in secret, fruitless of interest, a single pound, that is, one word of His. He used Himself to tell them that a candle was not usually “pushed away under a bushel, but placed on a candlestick,” in order to “give light to all who are in the house.”
The Prescription Against Heretics, 3.255.
5:16 IRENAEUS: This expression of our Lord, “How often would I have gathered your children together, and you were not willing,” set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free agent from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the commands of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will towards us is present with Him continually. And therefore He gives good counsel to all. And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, not be found in possession of the good, and shall receive deserved punishment: for God did kindly bestow on them what was good; but they themselves did not diligently keep it, nor deem it something precious, but poured contempt upon His super-eminent goodness. Rejecting therefore the good, and as it were spewing it out, they shall all deservedly incur the just judgment of God, which also the Apostle Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Romans, where he says, “But do you despise the riches of His goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, being ignorant that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” “But glory and honor,” he says, “to every one that does good.” God therefore has given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and they who work it shall receive glory and honor, because they have done that which is good when they had it in their power not to do it; but those who do not shall receive the just judgment of God, because they did not work good when they had it in their power to do so.
But if some had been made by nature bad, and others good, these latter would not be deserving of praise for being good, for such were they created; nor would the former be reprehensible, for thus they were made originally. But since all men are of the same nature, able both to hold fast and to do what is good; and, on the other hand, having also the power to cast it from them and not to do it,—some do justly receive praise even among men who are under the control of good laws (and much more from God), and obtain deserved testimony of their choice of good in general, and of persevering therein; but the others are blamed, and receive a just condemnation, because of their rejection of what is fair and good. And therefore the prophets used to exhort men to what was good, to act justly and to work righteousness, as I have so largely demonstrated, because it is in our power to do so, and because by excessive negligence we might become forgetful, and thus stand in need of that good counsel which the good God has given us to know by means of the prophets.
For this reason the Lord also said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” And, “Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with excess, and drunkenness, and worldly cares.” And, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning, and be like men that wait for their Lord, when He returns from the wedding, that when He comes and knocks, they may open to Him. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He comes, shall find so doing.” And again, “The servant who knows his Lord’s will, and does not do it, shall be beaten with many stripes.” And, “Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say?” And again, “But if the servant say in his heart, 'The Lord delays,' and begin to beat his fellow-servants, and to eat, and drink, and to be drunken, his Lord will come in a day on which he does not expect Him, and shall cut him in two, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites.” All such passages demonstrate the independent will of man, and at the same time the counsel which God conveys to him, by which He exhorts us to submit ourselves to Him, and seeks to turn us away from the sin of unbelief against Him, without, however, in any way coercing us.
Against Heresies, 1.518-519