Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Romans 14:15

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

You see how far, for the present, he goes in affection for him, showing that he makes so great account of him, that with a view not to grieve him he does not venture even to enjoin things of great urgency, but by yieldingness would rather draw him to himself, and by charity. For even when he has freed him of his fears, he does not drag him and force him, but leaves him his own master. For keeping a person from meats is no such matter as overwhelming with grief. You see how much he insists upon charity. …

Homily on Romans 26 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

Here he turns his speech to the perfect one, teaching: even if foods were a thousandfold not unclean by nature, you still ought to have abstained from pork, so that your brother who is scandalized would not be grieved, if only you wish to preserve love. You, he says, by a dispute over food are ruining and corrupting a brother who is so precious in the eyes of Christ that He died for him. …

Commentary on Romans ↗

Western Saints

Thomas Aquinas

Then when he says, for if, because of food, he clarifies what he had said: first, that scandals must not be placed before a brother; second, how something is common, at all things indeed are clean. In regard to the first he presents four arguments, the first of which is taken on the part of charity, saying: for if your brother be grieved by the fact that he thinks you are sinning because of food which you eat, which he considers unclean, you no longer walk according to charity, according to which a person loves his neighbor as …

Commentary on Romans ↗