Sunday, July 22, 2018

Dominica IX post Pentecosten: "Jesus...wept"


From the Holy Gospel according to Luke
Luke 19:41-44
At that time: When Jesus was come near to Jerusalem, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. And so on.

Origen
I do not deny then that the former Jerusalem was destroyed because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, but I ask whether the weeping might not perhaps concern this your spiritual Jerusalem. For if a man has sinned after receiving the mysteries of truth, he will be wept over. Moreover, no Gentile is wept over, but he only who was of Jerusalem, and has ceased to be.

Gregory
For our Redeemer does not cease to weep through His elect whenever He perceives any to have departed froma good life to follow evil ways. Who if they had known their own damnation, hanging over them, would together with the elect shed tears over themselves. But the corrupt soul here has its day, rejoicing in the passing time; to whom things present are its peace, seeing that it takes delight in that which is temporal. It shuns the foresight of the future which may disturb its present mirth; and hence it follows, But now they are hid from thine eyes.

Origen
But our Jerusalem is also wept over, because after enemies surround it, (that is, wicked spirits,) and cast a trench round it to besiege it, an dleave not a stone behind; epseically when a man after long contingency, after years of chastity, is overcome, ad enticed by the blandishments of the flesh, has lost his fortitude and his modesty, and has committed fornication, they will not leave on him one stone upon another , according to Ezekiel, His former righteousness I will not remember.



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