ACC ~ Hebrews 10 v30 - 34

THINK LIGHTLY OF WEALTH AND HONOR. CHRYSOSTOM: Knowing then these things, let us be patient when we suffer evil and forthright in offering kindness. This is all the stronger if we think lightly of wealth and honor. He that has stripped himself of those affections is of all people most generous and wealthier even than he who wears the purple. Do you not see how many evils come through money? I do not say how many through covetousness, but merely by our attachment to these things. Just think of one who loses his money and leads a life more wretched than any death. Why do you grieve, my friend? Why do you weep if God has delivered you from excessive watching? Better that you come before God in fear and trembling. Again, if someone might chain you to a treasure, commanding you to sit there perpetually and to keep watch for other people’s goods, you are grieved, you are disgusted. But would you, having been bound with these chains, grieve when you yourself are delivered from the slavery? ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 20.5.

THE DEVIL CAUSES LOSSES TO IMPEL US TO BLASPHEMY. CHRYSOSTOM: These things I say to the overreaching, and it is well to say them also to those who are overreached. Bear their overreaching generously; they are ruining themselves, not you. They indeed defraud you of your money, but they strip themselves of the good will and help of God. And he that is stripped of that, though he clothe himself with the whole wealth of the world, is of all people most poor, just as he who is the poorest of all, if he has God’s help, is the wealthiest of all. For “the Lord,” it is said, “is my shepherd, and I shall lack nothing.” Tell me now, if you had had a husband, a great and admirable man, who thoroughly loved you and cared for you, and then you knew that he would live always and not die before you and would give you all things to enjoy in security as your own, would you then have wished to possess anything? Even if you had been stripped of all, would you not have thought yourself the richer for this?

Why then do you grieve? Because you have no property? But consider that you have had the occasion of sin taken away. Or do you grieve because you had property and have been deprived of it? But remember that you have acquired the good will of God. And how have I acquired it, you say? He has said, “Why do you not rather suffer wrong?”He has said, “Blessed are they who bear all things with thankfulness.” Consider therefore how great a good you will enjoy, if you show forth those things by your works. For one thing only is required from us, “in all things to give thanks” to God, and then we have all things in abundance. I mean, for instance, have you lost ten thousand pounds of gold? Give thanks unto God, and you have acquired ten times ten thousand, by that word and thanksgiving.

For, tell me, when do you account Job blessed? When he had so many camels and flocks and herds, or when he uttered that saying: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away”? Therefore also the devil causes us losses, not that he may take away our goods only, for he knows that is nothing, but that through them he may compel us to utter some blasphemy. So in the case of the blessed Job too, the devil did not strive after this only to make him poor but also to make him a blasphemer. At any rate, when he had stripped him of everything, observe what he says to him through his wife, “Curse God, and die.”And yet, O accursed one, you had stripped him of everything. “But,” he says, “this is not what I was striving for, for I have not yet accomplished that for which I did it all. I was striving to deprive him of God’s help. … This is what I wish, the other is nothing. If this be not gained, he not only has not been injured at all, but has even been benefited.” Do you see that even that wicked demon knows how great is the loss in this matter? ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 20.7-8.

AFTER DISCOURAGING THEM. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: Then, after he discouraged them from sinning, Paul returned to talk to them about the first topic, that is, that of the joy which was at the beginning of their discipleship. “Recall,” he says, “the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.” COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

HE DID NOT SAY “TEMPTATIONS” BUT “STRUGGLE.” CHRYSOSTOM: The best physicians, after they have made a deep incision and have increased the pains by the wound, soothing the afflicted part and giving rest and refreshment to the disturbed soul, proceed not to make a second incision but rather soothe that which has been made with gentle remedies and such as are suited to remove the violence of the pain. This Paul also did after he had shaken their souls and pierced them with the recollection of hell and convinced them that he who does insult to the grace of God must certainly perish. After he had shown from the laws of Moses that they also shall perish … and had said, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” then, lest the soul, desponding through excessive fear, should be swallowed up with grief, he soothes them by commendations and exhortation and gives them zeal derived from their own conduct. For, he says, “recall the former days, when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.” Powerful is the exhortation from deeds already done, for he who begins a work ought to go forward and add to it. It is as if he had said, when you were brought in to the church, when you were in the rank of learners, you displayed such great readiness, such great nobleness. But now it is no longer so. And he who encourages thus especially encourages them from their own example.

And he did not simply say, “you endured a struggle” but a “hard” struggle. Moreover he did not say “temptations” but “struggle,” which is an expression of commendation and of very great praise. Then he also enumerates them particularly, amplifying his discourse and multiplying his praise. How? “Sometimes,” he says, you are “being publicly exposed to reproaches and affliction.” Reproach is a heavy weight and calculated to pervert the soul and to darken the judgment. The prophet remembers those who “say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’” … For since the human race is exceedingly vainglorious, it is easily overcome by this. And he did not simply say “by reproaches,” but that even with greater intensity, being “publicly exposed.” For when a person is reproached alone, it is indeed painful, but far more so when in presence of all. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 21.1.

SHAME TAKEN AWAY BY BAPTISM. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: Now “exposures to abuse and persecutions” they had to endure, because the law imposed on them the requirement to reveal their sins over their offerings. However, these exposures to abuse discouraged people from revealing their sins. These difficulties, he says, that you had in revealing your sins, and the shames that prevented you from revealing them, these fumes of the consciousness, which were like fierce pains and great sufferings of bitterness—all these have been taken away from you through the baptism of the waters and with the single expiation that you received. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

AS NOBLE WRESTLERS YOU STOOD. CHRYSOSTOM: I cannot say, he says, that you suffered these things indeed and were grieved, but you even rejoiced exceedingly. He expressed this by saying, “You became partners with those so treated,” and he brings forward the apostles themselves. Not only, he means, were you not ashamed of your own sufferings, but you even shared with others who were suffering the same things. This too is the language of one who is encouraging them. He said not, “Bear my afflictions, share with me,” but respect your own.

“You had compassion on those who were bound.” You see that he is speaking concerning himself and the rest who were in prison. Thus you did not account “bonds” to be bonds, but you stood as noble wrestlers. For not only did you need no consolation in your own distresses, but you even became a consolation to others. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 21.2.

Heb