Chrysostom The Homilies On The Epistle To The Hebrews

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-3-8496-2095-0
Verlag: Jazzybee Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 351 Seiten

This edition contains the 34 homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chrysostom, St. John

Weitere Mitwirkende

Schaff, Philipp

Leseproben

Homily VI.

Hebrews iii. 7–11.—“Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I sware in My wrath they shall not enter into My rest.”

[1.] Paul, having treated of hope, and having said that “We are His house, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (c. iii. ver. 6); next shows that we ought to look forward with firmness, and he proves this from the Scriptures. But be attentive, because he has expressed this in a manner somewhat difficult and not readily to be comprehended. And therefore we must first make our own statements, and after we have briefly explained the whole argument, then make clear the words of the Epistle. For you will no longer need us, if you have understood the scope of the Apostle.

His discourse was concerning Hope, and that it behooves us to hope for the things to come, and that for those who have toiled here there will assuredly be some reward and fruit and refreshment. This then he shows from the prophet; and what says he? “Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, they do alway err in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I sware in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest.”

He says that there are “three” rests: one, that of the Sabbath, in which God rested from His works; the second, that of Palestine, into which when the Jews had entered they would be at rest from their hardships and labors; the third, that which is Rest indeed, the kingdom of Heaven; which those who obtain, do indeed rest from their labors and troubles. Of these three then he makes mention here.

And why did he mention the three, when he is treating of the one only? That he might show that the prophet is speaking concerning this one. For he did not speak (he says) concerning the first. For how could he, when that had taken place long before? Nor vet again concerning the second, that in Palestine. For how could he? For he says,“They shall not enter into My rest.” It remains therefore that it is this third.

[2.] But it is necessary also to unfold the history, to make the argument more clear. For when they had come forth out of Egypt, and had accomplished a long journey, and had received innumerable proofs of the power of God, both in Egypt, and in the Red Sea (cf. Acts vii. 36), and in the wilderness, they determined to send spies to search out the nature of the land; and these went and returned, admiring indeed the country, and saying that it abounded in noble fruits, nevertheless it was a country of strong and invincible men: and the ungrateful and senseless Jews, when they ought to have called to mind the former blessings of God, and how when they were hemmed in the midst of the armies of so many Egyptians, He rescued them from their perils, and made them masters of their enemies’ spoils; and again, in the wilderness He clave the rock, and bestowed on them abundance of waters, and gave them the manna, and the other wonderful things which He wrought; [when they ought, I say, to have remembered this,] and to have trusted in God, they considered none of these things, but being struck with terror, just as if nothing had been done, they said, we wish to go back again into Egypt, “for God hath brought us out thither” (it is said) “to slay us, with our children and wives.” (Cf. Num. xiv. 3.) God therefore being angry that they had so quickly cast off the memory of what had been done, sware that generation, which had said these things, should not enter into the Rest; and they all perished in the wilderness. When David then, he says, speaking at a later period, and after these events, after that generation of men, said, “To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts,” that ye may not suffer the same things which your forefathers did, and be deprived of the Rest; he evidently [said this] as of some [future] rest. For if they had received their Rest (he says) why does He again say to them, “To-day if ye will hear His voice harden not your hearts,” as your fathers did? What other rest then is there, except the kingdom of Heaven, of which the Sabbath was an image and type?

[3.] Next having set down the whole testimony (and this is, “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I sware in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest”), he then adds:

Ver. 12. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.” For from hardness unbelief ariseth: and as in bodies, the parts that have become callous and hard do not yield to the hands of the physicians, so also souls that are hardened yield not to the word of God. For it is probable besides that some even disbelieved as though the things which had been done were not true.

Therefore he says, “Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing From the living God.” For since the argument from the future is not so persuasive as from the past, he reminds them of the history, in which they had wanted faith. For if your fathers (he says) because they did not hope as they ought to have hoped, suffered these things, much more will you. Since to them also is this word addressed: for, “To-day” (he says) is “ever,” so long as the world lasts.

[4.] Ver. 13. Wherefore “exhort ye one another daily, while it is called to-day.” That is, edify one another, raise yourselves up: lest the same things should befall you. “Lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Seest thou that sin produces unbelief? For as unbelief brings forth an evil life, so also a soul, “when it is come into a depth of evils, becometh contemptuous” (Prov. xviii. 3), and having become contemptuous it endures not even to believe, in order thereby to free itself from fear. For “they said” (one says), “The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard.” (Ps. xciv. 7.) And again, “Our lips are our own: who is Lord over us?” (Ps. xii. 4); and again “Wherefore hath the wicked man provoked God to wrath?” (Ps. x. 13); and again, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; they are corrupt and become abominable in their doings.” (Ps. xiv. 1.) “There is nofear of God before his eyes, for he was deceitful before Him, to find out his iniquity and to hate.” (Ps. xxxvi. 1, Ps. xxxvi. 2.) Yea and Christ also says this same thing, “Every one that doeth evil, hateth the light and cometh not to the light.” (John iii. 20.)

Then he adds (ver. 14), “For we have been made partakers of Christ.” What is this, “We have been made partakers of Christ”? We partake of Him (he means); we were made One, we and He—since He is the Head and we the body, “fellow-heirs and of the same body; we are one body, of His flesh and of His bones.” (Eph. iii. 6; Rom. xii. 5; Eph. v. 30.)

“If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence [or, the principle of our subsistence ] steadfast unto the end.” What is “the principle of our subsistence”? The faith by which we stand, and have been brought into being and were made to exist, as one may say.

[5.] Then he adds (ver. 15), “When it is said, To-day if ye hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.” This is a transposition, “when it is said, To-day if ye hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” [It must be read thus:]

(Ch. iv. 1, iv. 2.) “Let us fear Jest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it; for to us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them when it is said, To-day if ye hear His voice” (for “To-day” is “at every time” ).

Then [he adds] “but the word of hearing did not profit them, as they were not mixed by faith with them that heard.” How did it not profit? Then wishing to alarm them, he shows the same thing by what he says:

(Ch. iii. 16–19.) “For some when they had heard did provoke, howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses: And with whom was He grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom swear He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that believed not? So we see, that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” After again repeating the...