ACC ~ 2 Timothy 2 v20a

GOD’S ARRANGEMENT. ORIGEN: God who from the beginning felt it just to arrange his creation according to merit gathered the diversities of minds into the harmony of a single world, so as to furnish, as it were, out of these diverse vessels or souls or minds one house. In this house there must be “not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some unto honor and some unto dishonor.” ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2.9.6.

DIFFERING LEVELS OF MATURITY. AMBROSIASTER: Paul indicates that the church has diverse members, who are at differing levels of maturity. The heretic Novatian believes that this passage applies to the world, since he defends the general truth and holiness of his church. But this is wrong. COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

CHRYSOSTOM: As in a great house it is likely there should be a great difference of vessels, so here also, in the whole world. He speaks here not of the church only but of the world at large. For do not think, I pray, that he means it of the church. For there he would not have any vessels of wood or of earth but all of gold or silver, which is the body of Christ, which is that “pure virgin, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 6.

GOLD, SILVER AND WOOD DISTINGUISHED. THEODORET OF CYR: Paul applies the image of the great house to the world, where the golden vessels are persons of faith and virtue, the silver those who embrace civil life virtuously and righteously and the wooden those who live irreverent and disgraceful lives. INTERPRETATION OF THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

WHETHER THE CHURCH IS PURE. PELAGIUS: The house described by Paul cannot be the church, which is pure, but must be the world with its mixture of wheat and tares. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

BECOME WHEAT. CYPRIAN: For although there seem to be tares in the church, yet neither our faith nor our love ought to be hindered, so that, because we see that there are tares in the church, we ourselves should withdraw from the church. We must labor only that we may become wheat, so that when the wheat has begun to be gathered into the barns of the Lord, we may receive the reward for our work and labor. LETTERS 54.3.

JUDGMENT BELONGS TO GOD. CYPRIAN: Then, finally, what a great swelling of avarice it is, what a great forgetfulness of humility and meekness, what a great boasting of his own arrogance that anyone should either dare or think he is able to do what the Lord did not allow to the apostles, that he should think that he can discern the tares from the grain, or, as if it were granted to him to bear the spade and to purge the threshing floor, he should attempt to separate the chaff from the wheat and, although the apostle says, “But in a great house there are vessels not only of gold and silver but of wood and clay,” he should seem to chose the gold and silver vessels and to despise, indeed, to cast away, to condemn those of wood and clay. It is only in the day of the Lord that wooden vessels are to be burned by the fire of divine flame, and those of clay are to be broken by him to whom is given the rod of iron. LETTERS 55.25.

NOT ALL EQUAL. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: Here the house is the church, where different persons are not at all equal, yet each serves his or her use. COMMENTARY ON 2 TIMOTHY.

VARIOUS VESSELS IN THE CHURCH. BASIL THE GREAT: Every one of us, indeed, who is instructed in the holy Scripture is the administrator of some one of those gifts which, according to the gospel, have been apportioned to us. In this great household of the church not only are there vessels of every kind—gold, silver, wooden and earthen—but also a great variety of pursuits. HOMILY ON THE WORDS: “GIVE HEED TO THYSELF.”

A MIXED BODY. AUGUSTINE: Cyprian argued against those who, under the pretext of avoiding the society of wicked men, had severed themselves from the unity of the church. By the great house of which the apostle spoke—in which there were not only vessels of gold and of silver but also of wood and of earth—Paul understood nothing else but the church. In the church there should be good and bad, till at the last day it should be cleansed as a threshing floor by the winnowing fan. ON BAPTISM, AGAINST THE DONATISTS 4.12.18.

THE COCKLE SCATTERED IN THE FIELD. AUGUSTINE: That law of charity was pronounced by the lips of the Lord Christ, for those parables are his about the cockle scattered through the world in the unity of the field until the time of the harvest and about the bad fishes which are to be left in the same net until the time for landing on the shore. LETTERS 108.3.11.

ALL KINDS IN THE ARK. JEROME: Noah’s ark was a type of the church. … As in the ark there were all kinds of animals, so also in the church there are men of all races and characters. As in the one there was the leopard with the kids, the wolf with the lambs, so in the other there are found the righteous and sinners, that is, vessels of gold and silver with those of wood and earth. DIALOGUE AGAINST THE LUCIFERIANS 22.

2 Tim