Loading…
VRSZ
This sets the art on your cards and whose commentary you read on each verse. You can change it later in settings.
Translation
Loading…
What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
Ver. 15. "Unto the pure," he says, "all things are pure." Thou seest that this is said to a particular purpose. "But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure." Things then are not clean or unclean from their own nature, but from the disposition of him who partakes of them. "But even their mind and conscience is defiled." The swine therefore is clean. Why then was it forbidden as unclean? …
Theophylact of Ohrid
So then, foods are not clean or unclean by their own nature, but by the disposition of those who partake of them. The latter, being clean and pious, know that all things are clean, as the creation of God, and that only sin is unclean. For even if the law considered certain things unclean, this was not without purpose, but for the restraint of intemperance, knowing that the Jews would not have obeyed it without compulsion, being gluttons. …
Oecumenius
Things are always pure to the pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and conscience are defiled. — [OECUMENIUS] What then was the law given to the Jews concerning uncleanness? And we say, not because they were unclean did God legislate accordingly, but by this law cutting off much luxury and indifference among the Jews. For what is clean and unclean depends chiefly on the character of those receiving it. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
Those likewise are to be detested who deny that our Lord Jesus Christ had Mary as his mother on earth. That dispensation did honor to both sexes male and female and showed that both had a part in God's care; not only that which he assumed but that also through which he assumed it, being a man born of a woman.… Nor should our faith be lessened by any reference to "a woman's internal organs," as if it might appear that we must reject any such generation of our Lord because sordid people think that sordid. …
Jerome
"All things are clean to the clean, but to the unclean and unbelieving nothing is clean; instead, both their mind and their conscience are corrupted." For he had said earlier: "For there are many rebellious people who deceive others with their empty talk and false teaching. This is especially true of those who insist on circumcision for salvation. They must be silenced, because they are turning whole families away from the truth by their false teaching. …
Gregory the Dialogist
For, as in the old Testament outward acts were attended to, so in the New Testament it is not so much what is done outwardly as what is thought inwardly that is regarded with close attention, that it may be punished with searching judgment. For while the law forbids the eating of many things. …
Translation