ACC ~ 2 Timothy 3 v12

THE NATURE OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH. ORIGEN: When you flee Egypt, you come to these steep ascents of work and faith. You face a tower, a sea and waves. The way of life is not pursued without the waves of temptation. The apostle says, “All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution.” Job also, no less, declares, “Our life upon earth is a temptation.” HOMILIES ON EXODUS 5.3.

INEVITABLE STRUGGLE. CHRYSOSTOM: Here he calls afflictions and sorrows “persecutions.” Anyone who pursues the course of virtue should not expect to avoid grief, tribulation and temptations. HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 8.

WORTHY TO BE DISHONORED. CHRYSOSTOM: If the road is narrow and difficult, how can it be that “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”?He says difficult because of the nature of the trials but easy because of the willingness of the travelers. It is possible for even what is unendurable by nature to become light when we accept it with eagerness. Remember that the apostles who had been scourged returned rejoicing that they had been found worthy to be dishonored for the name of the Lord. ON LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN 3.

COMFORTED BY SUFFERING. THEODORET OF CYR: Many are the devices secretly plotted against me and through me patched up against the faith of apostles. I am however comforted by the sufferings of the saints, prophets, apostles, martyrs and men famous in the churches in the word of grace and besides these by the promises of our God and Savior. For in the present life he has promised us nothing pleasant or delightful, but rather trouble, toil, and peril and attacks of enemies. LETTERS 109.

FAITH AND PRACTICE TOGETHER. ATHANASIUS: In another place the apostle says, “And all those who will live godly lives in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” Then, to help prevent people from renouncing godliness when they are persecuted, he urges them to cling to the faith. “You, therefore, continue in the things you have learned and been assured of.”Just as brothers become strongly knit together when one helps another, so faith and godliness, coming from the same family, cohere together. A person who gives his attention to one of the two is strengthened by the other. FESTAL LETTERS 9.

ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. AUGUSTINE: Persecution, therefore, will never be lacking. For, when our enemies from without leave off raging and there ensues a span of tranquillity—even of genuine tranquillity and great consolation at least to the weak—we are not without enemies within, the many whose scandalous lives wound the hearts of the devout. … So it is that those who want to live piously in Christ must suffer the spiritual persecution of these and other aberrations in thought and morals, even when they are free from physical violence and vexation. THE CITY OF GOD 18.51.2.

PREPARE FOR TRIALS. AUGUSTINE: What sort of people, though, are those who, being afraid to offend the ones they are talking to, not only don’t prepare them for the trials that are looming ahead but even promise them a well-being in this world which God himself hasn’t promised to the world? He foretells distress upon distress coming upon the world right up to the end, and do you wish the Christian to be exempt from these distresses? Precisely because he’s Christian, he is going to suffer more in this world. SERMONS 46.11.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE. CAESARIUS OF ARLES: “All who want to live piously in Christ suffer persecution,” says the apostle. They are under attack from the enemy. For this reason, with Christ’s help, everyone who travels the journey of this life should be armed unceasingly and always stand in camp. So if you want to be constantly vigilant so that you may know you serve in the Lord’s camp, observe what the same apostle says, “No one serving as God’s soldier entangles himself in worldly affairs, that he may please him whose approval he has secured.” SERMONS 103.1.

THE REWARD COMES AFTER THE BATTLE. CAESARIUS OF ARLES: Do not seek on the journey what is being kept for you in your fatherland. Because it is necessary for you to fight against the devil every day under the leadership of Christ, do not seek in the midst of battle the reward which is being saved for you in the kingdom. During the fight you ought not to look for what is being kept for you when victory has been attained. Rather pay attention to what the apostle says, “Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ can expect to be persecuted,” and again, “We must undergo many trials if we are to enter the reign of God.” Sermons 215.3.

A SEEMING CONTRADICTION. JOHN CASSIAN: Abba Germanus said: “Since you have given us the remedies for every illusion, and since the diabolical snares that used to trouble us have been disclosed to us by your teaching and by the Lord’s gift, we beseech you likewise to explain to us completely this phrase from the Gospel,”My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” For it seems quite contrary to the words of the prophet, which say, “On account of the words of your lips I have kept to hard ways.”Indeed, even the apostle says, “All who wish to live devoutly in Christ suffer persecution.” Whatever is hard and has reference to persecution, however, can be neither light nor easy.” Abba Abraham said, “We shall demonstrate by the easy proof of experience itself that the words of our Lord and Savior are most true, if we set out on the path of perfection in lawful manner and in accordance with the will of Christ. … For what can be heavy or hard to the person who has taken up Christ’s yoke with his whole mind, is established in true humility, reflects constantly upon the Lord’s suffering and rejoices in all the hardships that come upon him?” CONFERENCES 23-24.

EVERY VIRTUE A CROSS. ISAAC OF NINEVEH: And the blessed Mark the Monk has said, “Every virtue on being achieved is called a cross, when it fulfills the Spirit’s commandment.” That is why all those who wish in the fear of the Lord to live in Jesus Christ, will suffer persecution. HOMILIES 72.

PERSECUTION COMES IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES. LEO THE GREAT: I am amazed that your charity is so overcome with tribulation from scandals, no matter from what occasion they arise, that you say you desire to be freed from the labors of your bishopric and prefer to live in silence and leisure rather than continue handling those problems which were entrusted to you. But, as the Lord said, “Blessed is he that perseveres to the end.” From what will this blessed perseverance come if not from the virtue of patience? For, according to the teaching of the apostle, “All who want to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution.” Persecution is to be reckoned not only as that which is done against Christian piety by the sword or fire or by any torments whatever, for the ravages of persecution are also inflicted by differences of character, the perversity of the disobedient and the barbs of slanderous tongues. LETTERS 167.1.

THE GLORY OF HIS WITNESS. THE VENERABLE BEDE: Paul permeated the corpus of his writings, which is made up of fourteen letters, with the aroma of Christ alone, if I may speak of Christ in this way. Whatever you read there either reveals the hidden mysteries of the faith, or shows the results of good works, or promises the joys of the heavenly kingdom, or lays bare the tribulations he sustained in preaching these things, or relates the divine consolation he received in the midst of his tribulations or suggests by a general exhortation that all “those who wish to live a good life in Christ” will not lack persecutions. … He knew most clearly and foretold with an unrestrained voice that his being killed for the Lord’s sake was nothing else but a most acceptable and pure sacrificial offering made to the Lord. Therefore Paul too glorified God, as did the rest of the apostles, for they too loved Christ with a pure heart and took care of Christ’s sheep with a sincere intent. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 2.22.

2 Tim