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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
Now His going, Who is every where, was not local, but through the vail of the flesh He approached us. But Christ fitly denominates His advent, His going forth. For we were aliens from God, and cast out as criminals, and rebels to the king, but he who wishes to reconcile man, going out to them, speaks to them without, until having become meet for the royal presence, He brings them within; so also did Christ.
Cyril of Alexandria
For every way side is in some measure dry and uncultivated, because it is trodden down by all men, and no seed gains moisture on it. So the divine warning reaches not the unteachable heart, that it should bring forth the praise of virtue. These then are the ways frequented by unclean spirits.
Theophylact of Ohrid
But He went out now, not to destroy the husbandmen, or to burn up the earth, but He went out to sow. For oftimes the husbandman who sows, goes out for some other cause, not only to sow. But the Son of God never ceases to sow in our hearts, for not only when teaching, but creating, He sows good seed in our hearts. He said not that the sower threw some on the way side, but that it fell by the way side. …
Western Saints
Bede
"And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it." What the Lord explained must be received with pious faith. But those things that he left silent for our understanding must be briefly mentioned. The seed that fell along the path perished due to a double injury: it was trampled underfoot by passersby and snatched away by birds. Thus, the path is a heart worn and hardened by the frequent passage of evil thoughts, so it cannot accept and germinate the word's seed. …
Bonaventure
The sower went out etc. After the gathering of the multitude, there is added here secondly the setting forth of the similitude. And because teaching ought to be according to the need of the hearers, therefore the proposed similitude has four distinct parts, corresponding to four classes of hearers. …
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