Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Mark 4:3

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

And indeed the prophet has compared the teaching of the people to the planting of a vine; (Isa. 5) in this place however it is compared to sowing, to show that obedience is now shorter and more easy, and will sooner yield fruit.

Catena Aurea by Aquinas ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

He puts forward the first parable about the seed in order to make the listeners more attentive. Since He intends to say that the seed is the word and that it perishes when it falls among the inattentive, He speaks of this first of all, so that the listeners might take care to be attentive and not resemble that soil which destroys the seed. But who is the Sower? …

Commentary on Mark ↗

Clement of Rome

Think of the various ways, dear friends, by which the master points us toward the coming resurrection, by which the Lord Jesus Christ was made the firstfruit when he raised him from the dead. Let us observe, dear friends, how something like resurrection is so often anticipated in the course of nature. Day and night, for example: the night falls asleep, and day arises; day departs, and night returns. Or consider the planting of crops: How and in what manner does the sowing take place? …

1 Clement 24.1-26.1 ↗

Western Saints

Bede

And he said to them in his teaching: Listen; behold, a sower went out to sow. The Lord himself, in the following, explaining this parable, asserts that the seed is the word of God, and that the sower is himself. But when he says that a sower went out to sow, he left it for us to inquire. …

On the Gospel of Mark ↗

Hippolytus of Rome

And these (heretics) suppose that this is what is spoken by the Saviour: "A sower went forth to sow; and that which fell on the fair and good ground produced, some a hundred-fold, and some sixty-fold, and some thirty-fold." And for this reason, the (Docetic) says, (that the Saviour) has spoken the words, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," because these (truths)are not altogether rumours. All these Aeons, both the three and all those infinite (Aeons which proceed) from these indefinitely, are hermaphrodite Aeons. …

Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies Book 8 ↗