ACC ~ Romans 11 v17

A WILD OLIVE SHOOT. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The graft uses as soil the tree in which it is engrafted. Now all the plants sprouted forth simultaneously in consequence of the divine order. Wherefore also, though the wild olive is wild, it crowns the Olympic victors. … Now we see that the wild trees attract more nutriment because they cannot ripen. The wild trees therefore have less power of secretion than those that are cultivated. And the cause of their wildness is the absence of the power of secretion. The engrafted olive accordingly receives more nutriment from its growing in the cultivated one, and it gets accustomed, as it were, to secrete the nutriment, becoming thus assimilated to the fatness of the cultivated tree. STROMATA 6.15.

PROGRESS BY FAITH. IRENAEUS: If the wild olive takes kindly to the graft … it becomes a fruit bearing olive. … So likewise men shall be spiritual if they progress by faith to better things and receive the Spirit of God and bring forth the fruit. AGAINST HERESIES 5.10.1.

THE BAD ROOT GRAFTED INTO A GOOD TREE. AMBROSIASTER: If some Jews have not believed, then they have been cut out of the promise. … The Gentiles, who were from a bad root, were grafted into a good tree, which is the opposite of what happens in agriculture, where it is the good branch which is grafted onto a bad root. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

SHARING THE RICHNESS OF THE OLIVE TREE. PELAGIUS: The branches were not broken off for your sake, but you were grafted in because they were broken off. You were an olive shoot, to be sure, but a wild and uncultivated one. “The richness of the olive tree” is the root of their fathers, the richness of Christ. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

THEODORET OF CYR: “The riches of the olive tree” means the teaching of righteousness. IN-TERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

Rom