ACC ~ John 6 v66

TRUTH IS NOT EASY TO SPEAK OR HEAR

JEROME: The medical men called surgeons pass for being cruel but really deserve pity. For is it not pitiful to cut away the dead flesh of another person with merciless knives without being moved by his pain? Is it not pitiful that the one who is curing the patient is callous to his sufferings and has to appear as his enemy? Yet this is the order of nature. While truth is always bitter, a pleasant disposition waits upon evildoing. Isaiah goes naked without blushing as a type of the captivity to come. [1] Jeremiah is sent from Jerusalem to the Euphrates (a river in Mesopotamia) and leaves his girdle to be marred in the Chaldean camp among the Assyrians hostile to his people. [2] Ezekiel is told to eat bread made of mingled seeds and sprinkled with the dung of people and cattle. [3] He has to see his wife die without shedding a tear. [4] Amos is driven from Samaria. [5] Why is he driven from it? Surely in this case, as in the others, because he was a spiritual surgeon who cut away the parts diseased by sin and urged people to repentance. The apostle Paul says, “Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” [6] The Savior himself found it no different. Many of the disciples left him because his sayings seemed hard. LETTER 40.1. [7]

[1] Is 20:2.

[2] Jer 13:6-7.

[3] Ezek 4:9-16.

[4] Ezek 24:15-18.

[5] Amos 7:12-13.

[6] HE WORD IN THE BEGINNING | JOHN 1:1

[7] NPNF 2 6:54*.

NO ROOM FOR FICKLE FAITH

TERTULLIAN: Let the chaff of a fickle faith fly off as much as it will at every blast of temptation, all the purer will be that heap of corn that shall be laid up in the garner of the Lord. Did not certain of the disciples turn back from the Lord himself when they were offended? Yet the rest did not therefore think that they must turn away from following him. But because they knew that he was the Word of Life and had come from God, they continued in his company to the very last, after he had gently inquired of them whether they also would go away. It is a comparatively small thing that certain men, like Phygelus, and Hermogenes, and Philetus and Hymenaeus, deserted his apostle: [1] the betrayer of Christ was himself one of the apostles. We are surprised at seeing his churches forsaken by some people, although the things that we suffer after the example of Christ himself show us to be Christians. “They went out from us,” says [John], “but they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.” [2] PRESCRIPTIONS AGAINST HERETICS 3. [3]

[1] 2 Tim 1:15; 2:17; 1 Tim 1:20.

[2] 1 Jn 2:19.

[3] ANF 3:244*.