ACC ~ Hebrews 2 v1 - 2

KEEP YOUR HEART WITH ALL VIGILANCE. ORIGEN: The design of Judas concerning the betrayal of our Lord and Savior did not originate in the wickedness of his mind alone. For Scripture testifies that the “devil had already put it into his heart to betray him.” On this account Solomon rightly commanded, saying, “Keep your heart with all diligence.” And the apostle Paul warns us: “Therefore we ought to pay closer attention to the things which we have heard, lest by chance we drift away.” ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.2.4.

THE LAW WAS GIVEN TO US BY ANGELS. PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS: Compared with the things that merely are, with irrational forms of life and indeed with our own rational natures, the holy ranks of heavenly beings are obviously superior in what they have received of God’s largess. Their thinking processes imitate the divine. They look on the divine likeness with a transcendent eye. They model their intellects on God. Hence it is natural for them to enter into a more generous communion with the deity, because they are forever marching towards the heights, because, as permitted, they are drawn to a concentration of an unfailing love for God, because they immaterially receive undiluted the original enlightenment, and because, ordered by such enlightenment, theirs is a life of total intelligence. They have the first and most diverse participation in the divine, and they, in turn, provide the first and most diverse revelations of the divine hiddenness. That is why they have a preeminent right to the title of angel or messenger, since it is they who first are granted the divine enlightenment, and it is they who pass on to us these revelations that are so far beyond us. Indeed, the Word of God teaches us that the law was given to us by the angels. Before the days of the law and after it had come, it was the angels who uplifted our illustrious ancestors toward the divine. And they did so by prescribing roles of conduct, by turning them from wandering and sin to the right way of truth, or by coming to announce and explain sacred orders, hidden visions, or transcendent mysteries, or divine prophecies. CELESTIAL HIERARCHY 4.2.

THE MESSAGE DECLARED THROUGH THE ANGEL IN SODOM. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: “Therefore we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard” from the Son, “lest we drift away” just like the former people. “If,” because of that message declared through the angel in Sodom, those who did not want to listen to it “received the penalty of punishment, then how can we be saved, if we neglect so great a new life?” COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

A JUST REWARD. CHRYSOSTOM: “And every transgression or disobedience,” he says. Not this one or that one, but “every” one. Nothing, he says, remained unavenged but “received a just recompense of reward” instead of punishment. Why does he speak like this? Such is the manner of Paul, not to make much account of his phrases but indifferently to put down words of evil sound, even in matters of good meaning. As also in another place he says, “Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” And again he has put “recompense” for punishment, as here he calls punishment “reward.” ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 3.6.

Heb