Luke 14:26

The mind is kindled, when it hears of heavenly rewards, and already desires to be there, where it hopes to enjoy them without ceasing; but great rewards cannot be reached except by great labors. Therefore it is said, And there went great multitudes to him: and he turned to them, and said, &c.

For because many of those that accompanied Him followed not with their whole heart, but lukewarmly, He shows what kind of a man his disciple ought to be.

But it may be asked, how are we bid to hate our parents and our relations in the flesh, who are commanded to love even our enemies? But if we weigh the force of the command we are able to do both, by rightly distinguishing them so as both to love those who are united to us by the bond of the flesh, and whom we acknowledge our relations, and by hating and avoiding not to know those whom we find our enemies in the way of God. For he is as it were loved by hatred, who in his carnal wisdom, pouring into our ears his evil sayings, is not heard.

For if for your sake the Lord renounces His own mother, saying, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? why do you deserve to be preferred to your Lord? But the Lord will have us neither be ignorant of nature, nor be her slaves, but so to submit to nature, that we reverence the Author of nature, and depart not from God out of love to our parents.

Now to show that this hatred towards relations proceeds not from inclination or passion, but from love, our Lord adds, yes, and his own life also. It is plain therefore that a man ought to hate his neighbor, by loving as himself him who hated him. For then we rightly hate our own soul when we indulge not its carnal desires, when we subdue its appetites, and wrestle against its pleasures. That which by being despised is brought to a better condition, is as it were loved by hatred.

But life must not be renounced, which both in the body and the soul the blessed Paul also preserved, that yet living in the body he might preach Christ. But when it was necessary to despise life so that he might. finish his course, he counts not his life dear to him.

How the hatred of life ought to be strewn He declares as follows; Whosoever bears not his cross, &c.

He means not that we should place a beam of wood on our shoulders, but that we should ever have death before our eyes. As also Paul died daily and despised death.

By bearing the cross also he announced the death of his Lord, saying, The world is crucified to me, and I to the world, which we also anticipate at our very baptism, in which our old man is crucified, that the body of sin may be destroyed.

Or because the cross is so called from torturing. In two ways we bear our Lord’s cross, either when by abstinence we afflict our bodies, or when through compassion of our neighbor we think all his necessities our own. But because some exercise abstinence of the flesh not for God’s sake but for vain-glory, and show compassion, not spiritually but carnally, it is rightly added, And comes after me. For to bear His cross and come after the Lord, is to use abstinence of the flesh, or compassion to our neighbor, from the desire of an eternal gain.

Et rursus cure dicit: “Bonum est homini uxorem non tangere, sed propter fornicationes unusquisque suam uxorem habeat;” id veluti exponens, rursus dicit: “Ne vos tentet Satanas.” Non enim iis, qui continenter utuntur matrimonio propter solam liberorum procreationem, dicit, “propter intemperantiam;” sed iis, qui finem liberorum procreationis cupiunt transilire: ne, cure nimium annuerit noster adversarius, excitet appetitionem ad alienas voluptates. Fortasse autem quoniam iis, qui juste vivunt, resistit propter æmulationem, et adversus eos contendit, volens eos ad suos ordines traducere, per laboriosam continentiam eis vult præbere occasionera. Merito ergo dicit: “Melius est matrimonio jungi quam uri,” ut “vir reddat debiturn uxori, et uxor viro, et ne frustrentur invicem” hoc divino ad generationera dato auxilio. …

He knows accurately the declaration, “Unless ye hate father and mother, and besides your own life, and unless ye bear the sign [of the cross].” For he hates the inordinate affections of the flesh, which possess the powerful spell of pleasure; and entertains a noble contempt for all that belongs to the creation and nutriment of the flesh. He also withstands the corporeal soul, putting a bridle-bit on the restive irrational spirit: “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” And “to bear the sign of [the cross]” is to bear about death, by taking farewell of all things while still alive; since there is not equal love in “having sown the flesh,” and in having formed the soul for knowledge.

XXII. “And Jesus answering said, Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall leave what is his own, parents, and children, and wealth, for My sake and the Gospel’s, shall receive an hundredfold.” But let neither this trouble you, nor the still harder saying delivered in another place in the words, “Whoso hateth not father, and mother, and children, and his own life besides, cannot be My disciple.” For the God of peace, who also exhorts to love enemies, does not introduce hatred and dissolution from those that are dearest. But if we are to love our enemies, it is in accordance with right reason that, ascending from them, we should love also those nearest in kindred. Or if we are to hate our blood-relations, deduction teaches us that much more are we to spurn from us our enemies. So that the reasonings would be shown to destroy one another. …

In the same manner, therefore, we maintain that the other announcements too refer to the condition of martyrdom. “He,” says Jesus, “who will value his own life also more than me, is not worthy of me,”, that is, he who will rather live by denying, than die by confessing, me; and “he who findeth his life shall lose it; but he who loseth it for my sake shall find it.” Therefore indeed he finds it, who, in winning life, denies; but he who thinks that he wins it by denying, will lose it in hell. On the other hand, he who, through confessing, is killed, will lose it for the present, but is also about to find it unto everlasting life. …

And it is possible to apply these words also to our nearest kinsfolk, who are our members, as it were; being considered to be our members, because of the close relationship; whether by birth, or from any habitual friendship, so to speak; whom we must not spare if they are injuring our soul. For let us cut off from ourselves as a hand or a foot or an eye, a father or mother who wishes us to do that which is contrary to piety, and a son or daughter who, as far as in them lies, would have us revolt from the church of Christ and the love of Him. …

15. From this his conversation turned to the companies in the monasteries, and their manners so fragrant unto Thee, and of the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, of which we knew nothing. And there was a monastery at Milan full of good brethren, without the walls of the city, under the fostering care of Ambrose, and we were ignorant of it. He went on with his relation, and we listened intently and in silence. He then related to us how on a certain afternoon, at Triers, when the emperor was taken up with seeing the Circensian games, he and three others, his comrades, went out for a walk in the gardens close to the city walls, and there, as they chanced to walk two and two, one strolled away with him, while the other two went by themselves; and these, in their ram bling, came upon a certain cottage inhabited by some of Thy servants, “poor in spirit,” of whom “is the kingdom of heaven,” wh …

40. But it is rather that statement which the Lord Himself makes in another passage which is wont to disturb the minds of the little ones, who nevertheless earnestly desire to live now according to the precepts of Christ: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” For it may seem a contradiction to the less intelligent, that here He forbids the putting away of a wife saving for the cause of fornication, but that elsewhere He affirms that no one can be a disciple of His who does not hate his wife. But if He were speaking with reference to sexual intercourse, He would not place father, and mother, and brothers in the same category. …

42. A Christian may therefore live in concord with his wife, whether with her providing for a fleshly craving, a thing which the apostle speaks by permission, not by commandment; or providing for the procreation of children, which may be at present in some degree praiseworthy; or providing for a brotherly and sisterly fellowship, without any corporeal connection, having his wife as though he had her not, as is most excellent and sublime in the marriage of Christians: yet so that in her he hates the name of temporal relationship, and loves the hope of everlasting blessedness. For we hate, without doubt, that respecting which we wish at least, that at some time hereafter it should not exist; as, for instance, this same life of ours in the present world, which if we were not to hate as being temporal, we would not long for the future life, which is not conditioned by time. …

“And why speak I,” saith He, “of friends and kinsmen? Even if it be thine own life which thou preferrest to my love, thy place is far from my disciples.” What then? Are not these things contrary to the Old Testament? Far from it, rather they are very much in harmony therewith. For there too He commands not only to hate the worshippers of idols, but even to stone them; and in Deuteronomy again, admiring these, He saith, “Who said unto his father, and to his mother, I have not seen thee; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, and his own sons he disowned: he kept Thy oracles.” And if Paul gives many directions touching parents, commanding us to obey them in all things, marvel not; for in those things only doth he mean us to obey, as many as do not hinder godliness. …

And how, some one may say, is the burden light, when He saith, “Except one hate father and mother;” and, “Whosoever taketh not up his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me:” and, “Whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple:”when He commands even to give up our very life? Let Paul teach thee, saying, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” And that, “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” Let those teach thee, who return from the council of the Jews after plenty of stripes, and “rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ.” And if thou art still afraid and tremblest at hearing of the yoke and the burden, the fear comes not of the nature of the thing, …

Say, what are the Scriptures for? For as much as in you lies, it is all undone. What is the Church for? Tie up the Bibles: perhaps the judgment would not be such, not such the punishment: if one were to bury them in dung, that he might not hear them, he would not so insult them as you do now. For say, what is the insult there? That the man has buried them. And what here? That we do not hear them. Say, when is a person most insulted, when he is silent, and one makes no answer, or, when he does speak (and is unheeded)? So that the insult is greater in the present case, when He does speak and thou wilt not hear: greater the contempt. “Speak not to us” ( Is. xxx. 10 ), we read, they said of old to the Prophets: but ye do worse, saying, Speak: we will not do. …

Yet how strange! for how then is it, that it is said elsewhere, “If one bid not farewell both to wife and to husband, he cannot follow me”? ( Luke xiv. 26 .) For if it is their duty to be in subjection “as unto the Lord,” how saith He that they must depart from them for the Lord’s sake? Yet their duty indeed it is, their bounden duty. But the word “as” is not necessarily and universally expressive of exact equality. He either means this, “‘as’ knowing that ye are servants to the Lord”; (which, by the way, is what he says elsewhere, that, even though they do it not for the husband’s sake, yet must they primarily for the Lord’s sake;) or else he means, “when thou obeyest thy husband, do so as serving the Lord.” For if he who resisteth these external authorities, those of governments, I mean, “withstandeth the ordinance of God” ( Rom. xiii. …