Sf. m. Chiriac și mama sa Iulita († 296). În timpul săpt Ap și Ev săpt a 4-a dR.

9:1-13 ISRAEL’S FALL FROM GRACE
OVERVIEW: The conscience bears witness to the truth. Paul’s love for the Jews and his desire for their salvation was such that he was prepared to wish the impossible: that he should himself be cut off from Christ. Evidently the apostle’s hyperbole was subject to misunderstanding, since some of the Fathers felt obliged to reassure their readers that he did not mean what he was saying. Paul’s detailed listing of Jewish privileges was respected by the Fathers, but they did not elaborate on them much. It was clear to them that the apostle was referring to the Jews of the Old Testament, not to their own contemporaries, who had rejected Christ. Even in Old Testament times not all of Abraham’s children inherited the promise, but only Isaac. Similarly, in the next generation Esau was rejected, but Jacob was chosen. It was therefore impossible to sustain the notion that the promise made to Abraham was ever meant to apply to all his physical descendants. Furthermore, although Isaac was Abraham’s natural son, he was born by supernatural means, thereby prefiguring Christ. There is a strong predestinarian note in the account of Jacob and Esau, which the Fathers found difficult to deal with. They were always concerned to insist that Esau had a free choice and that if he had behaved differently, he would not have been rejected. However, they were usually prepared to accept that God knew in advance what would happen, even if he was not the unilateral cause of it, so that there was no real possibility of things turning out otherwise. Only Augustine, and then only in his later writings, was prepared to accept the full implications of divine predestination.
9:14-21 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL
OVERVIEW: The fact that God punishes some and not others is hard to understand, but it is not unjust. Here we meet the problem of the baptized who do not follow Christ in later life. As far as Augustine was concerned, such people had no claim to inherit eternal life, though he could not explain why God allows such apostasy to happen. God is free to show mercy to whomever he wishes, and his decisions are never unjust. God’s choosing is not based on human merit. Ultimately it is a mystery understood by God alone.
God can use even the hardest heart to serve his purposes, as was the case with Pharaoh. The idea that the Egyptian monarch might have repented is dismissed by saying that he was so far gone in sin that it would have been inconceivable. God’s approach to Pharaoh was not unjust, because Pharaoh was a sinner. Mercy is never automatic and cannot be taken for granted by anyone. God’s will can never be resisted, but it is always holy and just whether we understand it or not. Few passages in the New Testament are more strongly predestinarian than Romans 9:19-21, and we can sense that some Fathers were uncomfortable with them. Once more it is Augustine who draws the logical conclusion and says that since the entire clay of the human race was corrupted in Adam, it is only by the mercy of God that any of us can be redeemed. Adam’s exercise of his free will effectively removes ours. These selections differ as to the voice of the speaker, whether Paul’s or a rhetorical opponent’s, and as to the extent to which the metaphor of the vessel allows for free will.
Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew 11,2-15
11:1-19 MESSENGERS FROM JOHN THE BAPTIST; JESUS SPEAKS OF JOHN
OVERVIEW: After commissioning the apostles, Jesus proceeded to separate himself from them, to give them room and opportunity to do what he had called them to do CHRYSOSTOM). When John was about to be killed by Herod, he sent his disciples to Christ, intending that when they met him, they would believe in him (JEROME, HILARY). Why did John send his disciples to ask a question he was already able to answer (GREGORY THE GREAT)? It is hardly conceivable that John was ignorant about the Christ (THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA). Was it that John was rather asking more specifically about whether he was destined to precede Jesus in his ministry into the nether world (GREGORY THE GREAT)? Anyone who is to know Christ must know him personally (THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA).
The Fathers offered various spiritual interpretations of this passage. As the law had announced Christ, predicted the forgiveness of sins and promised the kingdom of heaven, so John thoroughly accomplished all of this work. When the law’s embodiment was oppressed in prison, he sent a mission out to behold the good news (HILARY). Jesus answered nothing directly concerning his identity but left them to discern it from the miracles (CHRYSOSTOM). Jesus replied to John’s disciples: “You will be blessed if you take no offense at me” (ANONYMOUS).

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Jesus defended John, signifying that he had not fallen away from his former confidence, nor had he changed his mind (CHRYSOSTOM). Remember that you did not go out into the wilderness to see a man like a reed who is blown about by every wind, so irresolute that he cannot make up his mind about what he previously predicted (JEROME). John is not a reed bending with each slight breeze of approval or rumor (GREGORY THE GREAT, ANONYMOUS). John had already borne witness to Christ and in so doing received more from Christ than he gave. When John glorified Christ, he conferred human praise upon him; but Christ conferred divine glory on John (ANONYMOUS). John is described as a messenger or an angel (JEROME). One is angelic who with his human nature passes into angelic holiness and attains by the grace of God what is not his by nature. Insofar as John was a man and yet called an angel, he was more glorious than if he had been an angel both in name and nature (ANONYMOUS). Having said that he is greater than a prophet, Jesus signified in what way he is greater. In being so very near the One who was to come (CHRYSOSTOM), John attested the One who was born from a woman yet existed prior to the woman (ANONYMOUS). Any saint present with God in heaven is greater than one who remains in the battle (JEROME). Compared with all born of women, John is the greatest, but compared with those who partake of the Spirit in the kingdom of heaven, John will be found to be the least (THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA).
The glory pledged to Israel by the patriarchs, which the prophets announced and Christ offered, is now being seized and carried off by the Gentiles (HILARY). Some continue to seek to force their way into heaven by the merit of their works (JEROME). In saying that people of violence would try to take the kingdom by force, Jesus is thinking of a kind of Jewish legalism that did not believe in the way of Christ but also stood in others’ way (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). “The days of John” are understood not chronologically in reference to time but in reference to the state of the soul in readiness to hear the divine Scripture (ORIGEN). John the Baptist is called Elijah because he came in the spirit and goodness of Elijah and had the same grace and power of the Holy Spirit (JEROME, APOLLINARIS, THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA). Just as when some children are dancing and others are singing a dirge, so the Jews underwent such an experience. They accepted neither the vigor of John nor the freedom of Christ (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, JEROME).