Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 101:5

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"Whoso privily slandered his neighbour, him I persecuted" [Psalm 101:5]. Behold the righteous persecutor, not of the man, but of the sin. "With the proud eye, and the insatiable heart, I did not feed." What means, "I did not feed with"? I did not eat in common with such. Attend, beloved; since you are about to hear something wonderful. If he did not feed with this man, he did not eat with him; for to feed is to eat; how is it then that we find our Lord Himself eating with the proud? …

Exposition on Psalm 101 ↗

Jerome

Him who secretly disparaged his neighbor, this one I persecuted. So far ought we not to consent to the disparager, that we should even, as far as it lies in us, pursue such a person, providing for what is useful in both cases: that we neither listen willingly, nor permit him to sin. For so great is the distance between the fornicator and the disparager: that he who fornicates kills only himself, but he who disparages plunges to ruin both himself and the one who listens.

Homily 27, on Psalm 100 ↗