Exodus 21:17

XXXIII . For if the divine oracle says, concerning our parents according to the flesh, “Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee;” and, “He that curseth his father or his mother, let him die the death;” how much more should the word exhort you to honour your spiritual parents, and to love them as your benefactors and ambassadors with God, who have regenerated you by water, and endued you with the fulness of the Holy Spirit, who have fed you with the word as with milk, who have nourished you with doctrine, who have confirmed you by their admonitions, who have imparted to you the saving body and precious blood of Christ, who have loosed you from your sins, who have made you partakers of the holy and sacred eucharist, who have admitted you to be partakers and fellow-heirs of the promise of God! Reverence these, and honour them with all kinds of honour; for they have o …

And since this had no shade of contrariety to the law, to command men to wash their hands, He brings forward another tradition, which is opposed to the law. And what He saith is like this. “They taught the young, under the garb of piety, to despise their fathers.” How, and in what way? “If one of their parents said to his child, Give me this sheep that thou hast, or this calf, or any such thing, they used to say, ‘This is a gift to God, whereby thou wouldest be profited by me, and thou canst not have it.’ And two evils hence arose: on the one hand they did not bring them to God, on the other they defrauded their parents under the name of the offering, alike insulting their parents for God’s sake, and God for their parents’ sake.” But He doth not say this at once, but first rehearses the law, by which He signifies His earnest desire that parents should be honored. …

14. The blessed Apostle approves of the Corinthians because, he says, ‘ye remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as I delivered them to you’ ( 1 Cor. xi. 2 ); but they, as entertaining such views of their predecessors, will have the daring to say just the reverse to their flocks: ‘We praise you not for remembering your fathers, but rather we make much of you, when you hold not their traditions.’ And let them go on to accuse their own unfortunate birth, and say, ‘We are sprung not of religious men but of heretics.’ For such language, as I said before, is consistent in those who barter their Fathers’ fame and their own salvation for Arianism, and fear not the words of the divine proverb, ‘There is a generation that curseth their father’ ( Prov. xxx. 11; Ex. xxi. 17 ), and the threat lying in the Law against such. …

The letters are sufficient which were written by our beloved fellow-minister Damasus, bishop of the Great Rome, and the large number of bishops who assembled along with him; and equally so are those of the other synods which were held, both in Gaul and in Italy, concerning the sound Faith which Christ gave us, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers, who met at Nicæa from all this world of ours, have handed down. For so great a stir was made at that time about the Arian heresy, in order that they who had fallen into it might be reclaimed, while its inventors might be made manifest. …

15. But while honouring our heavenly Father let us honour also the fathers of our flesh : since the Lord Himself hath evidently so appointed in the Law and the Prophets, saying, Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and thy days shall be long in the land . And let this commandment be especially observed by those here present who have fathers and mothers. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing to the Lord . For the Lord said not, He that loveth father or mother is not worthy of Me , lest thou from ignorance shouldest perversely mistake what was rightly written, but He added, more than Me . For when our fathers on earth are of a contrary mind to our Father in heaven, then we must obey Christ’s word. …