Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 73:18

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

To wit, "because of deceitfulness You have set upon them" [Psalm 73:18]. Because deceitful they are, that is fraudulent; because deceitful they are, they suffer deceits. What is this, because fraudulent they are they suffer a fraud? They desire to play a fraud upon mankind in all their naughtinesses, they themselves also suffer a fraud, in choosing earthly good things, and in forsaking the eternal. Therefore, brethren, in their very playing off a fraud they suffer a fraud. …

Exposition on Psalm 73 ↗

Ambrose of Milan

Such, then, is the first supposition of true knowledge, that things in the world happen by chance. The second is that "on account of the subterfuges you have placed before them" prodigious success, worldly profits and an abundance of riches. Otherwise, they might plead by way of excuse that they had been less devout by reason of want or of some bitter pain or grief and had been driven to the guilt of robbery and to the desire to plunder under compulsion of poverty. …

Interrogation of Job and David, Book 3, Chapter VII ↗