ACC ~ 2 Corinthians 4 v18

EARTHLY THINGS NOTHING. AMBROSIASTER: Paul is saying that people who long for heavenly things despise the things of this world, because in comparison with what they want, these things are nothing. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

UNSEEN THINGS ARE ETERNAL. CHRYSOSTOM: Our present afflictions will be light and our future will be glorious if we turn away from visible things and concentrate on spiritual ones instead. What excuse have we got if we choose the temporal instead of the eternal? Even if the present is enjoyable, it does not last, though the sorrow it engenders does last and cannot be alleviated. What excuse will they have if those who have been accounted worthy of receiving the Spirit and have enjoyed so great a gift grovel and fall down before the things of this earth? HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 9.3.

THINGS NOT SEEN. CAESARIUS OF ARLES: If you seek temporal things, you pray publicly and with your door open. If you ask for eternal things, your prayer is secret because you long to receive not the things which are seen but those which are not seen. SERMON 146.3.

ENDURE THE PRESENT IN LIGHT OF THE FUTURE. CHRYSOSTOM: Consider, dearly beloved, that life’s troubles, even if distressing, are still of short duration, whereas the good things that will come to us in the next life are eternal and everlasting. “What we see is passing,” Scripture says, “but what is not seen is everlasting.” Accordingly, let us endure what is passing without complaint and not desist from virtue’s struggle so that we may enjoy the good things that are eternal and last forever. HOMILIES ON GENESIS 25.24.

A SPIRITUAL TRANSACTION. CHRYSOSTOM: Far from being surprised or troubled, let us endure developments with complete fortitude and endurance, having regard not to the distress but to the gain accruing to us from it. This transaction, you see, is spiritual. People intent on making money and being involved in a transaction of this life would succeed in increasing their wealth in no other way than by being exposed to great danger on land and at sea (they must, after all, put up with the onset of brigands and wiles of pirates), and yet they are ready to accept everything with great enthusiasm, having no sense of hardship through the expectation of gain. In just the same way must we keep our mind on the wealth and spiritual riches accruing to us from this. We must rejoice and be glad, considering not what can be seen but what cannot be seen, as Paul’s exhortation goes, “not considering what can be seen.” HOMILIES ON GENESIS 63.20.