2 Thessalonians 3:6

We will certainly take more pains in answering the excuses of artificers of this kind, who ought never to be admitted into the house of God, if any have a knowledge of that Discipline. To begin with, that speech, wont to be cast in our teeth, “I have nothing else whereby to live,” may be more severely retorted, “You have, then, whereby to live? If by your own laws, what have you to do with God?” Then, as to the argument they have the hardihood to bring even from the Scriptures, “that the apostle has said, ‘As each has been found, so let him persevere.’” We may all, therefore, persevere in sins , as the result of that interpretation! for there is not any one of us who has not been found as a sinner , since no other cause was the source of Christ’s descent than that of setting sinners free. …

For even in the Proverbs, which we call Parœmiæ, Solomon specially (treats) of the adulterer (as being) nowhere admissible to expiation. “But the adulterer,” he says, “through indigence of senses acquireth perdition to his own soul; sustaineth dolors and disgraces. His ignominy, moreover, shall not be wiped away for the age. For indignation, full of jealousy, will not spare the man in the day of judgment.” If you think this said about a heathen, at all events about believers you have already heard (it said) through Isaiah: “Go out from the midst of them, and be separate, and touch not the impure.” You have at the very outset of the Psalms, “Blessed the man who hath not gone astray in the counsel of the impious, nor stood in the way of sinners, and sat in the state-chair of pestilence;” whose voice, withal, (is heard) subsequently: “I have not sat with the conclave of vanity; and with the …

23. I indeed desire, beloved brethren, and I equally endeavour and exhort, that if it be possible, none of the brethren should perish, and that our rejoicing Mother may enclose in her bosom the one body of a people at agreement. Yet if wholesome counsel cannot recall to the way of salvation certain leaders of schisms and originators of dissensions, who abide in blind and obstinate madness, yet do you others, if either taken in simplicity, or induced by error, or deceived by some craftiness of misleading cunning, loose yourselves from the nets of deceit, free your wandering steps from errors, acknowledge the straight way of the heavenly road. …

4. First then we ought to demonstrate that the blessed Apostle Paul willed the servants of God to work corporal works which should have as their end a great spiritual reward, for this purpose that they should need food and clothing of no man, but with their own hands should procure these for themselves: then, to show that those evangelical precepts from which some cherish not only their sloth but even arrogance, are not contrary to the Apostolical precept and example. Let us see then whence the Apostle came to this, that he should say, “If any will not work, neither let him eat,” and what he thereupon joineth on, that from the very context of this lesson may appear his declared sentence. “We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh unquietly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us. …

Again an exhortation, and prayer after the exhortation. For after telling them to “mark them which cause divisions,” and not to listen to them, he proceeds, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly:” and, “The grace of our Lord be with you.” And notice how gently too he exhorts them: doing it not in the character of a counsellor, but that of a servant, and with much respect. For he calls them brethren, and supplicates them likewise. For, “I beseech you, brethren,” (he says). Then he also puts them on the defensive by showing the deceitfulness of those who abused them. …

Ver. 6 . “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which they received of us.” That is, it is not we that say these things, but Christ, for that is the meaning of “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”; equivalent to “through Christ.” Showing the fearfulness of the message, he says, through Christ. Christ therefore commanded us in no case to be idle. “That ye withdraw yourselves,” he says, “from every brother.” Tell me not of the rich, tell me not of the poor, tell me not of the holy. This is disorder. “That walketh,” he says, that is, liveth. “And not after the tradition which they received from me.” Tradition, he says, which is through works. And this he always calls properly tradition.

The blessed Apostle, like a true and spiritual physician, either seeing this disease, which springs from the spirit of accidie, already creeping in, or foreseeing, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, that it would arise among monks, is quick to anticipate it by the healing medicines of his directions. For in writing to the Thessalonians, and at first, like a skilful and excellent physician, applying to the infirmity of his patients the soothing and gentle remedy of his words, and beginning with charity, and praising them in that point, that this deadly wound, having been treated with a milder remedy, might lose its angry festering and more easily bear severer treatment, he says: “But concerning brotherly charity ye have no need that I write to you: for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another. …

And Solomon, the wisest of men, clearly points to this fault of idleness in many passages, as he says: “He that followeth idleness shall be filled with poverty,” either visible or invisible, in which an idle person and one entangled with different faults is sure to be involved, and he will always be a stranger to the contemplation of God, and to spiritual riches, of which the blessed Apostle says: “For in all things ye were enriched in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge.” But concerning this poverty of the idler elsewhere he also writes thus: “Every sluggard shall be clothed in torn garments and rags.” For certainly he will not merit to be adorned with that garment of incorruption (of which the Apostle says, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and again: “Being clothed in the breastplate of righteousness and charity,” concerning which the Lord Himself also speaks to Jerusalem by t …