{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/009/0090369.htm","path":"chr/ecf/009/0090369.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/009/0090369.htm","text":"18. Prophets in Their Country.\n\u201cBut Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.\u201d 5272 We must inquire whether the expression has the same force when applied universally to every prophet (as if each one of the prophets was dishonoured in his own country only, but not as if every one who was dishonoured was dishonoured in his country); or, because of the expression being singular, these things were said about one. If, then, these words are spoken about one, these things which have been said suffice, if we refer that which is written to the Saviour. But if it is general, it is not historically true; for Elijah did not suffer dishonour in Tishbeth of Gilead, nor Elisha in Abelmeholah, nor Samuel in Ramathaim, nor Jeremiah in Anathoth. But, figuratively interpreted, it is absolutely true; for we must think of Jud\u00e6a as their country, and that famous Israel as their kindred, and perhaps of the body as the house. For all suffered dishonour in Jud\u00e6a from the Israel which is according to the flesh, while they were yet in the body, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, as having been spoken in censure to the people, \u201cWhich of the prophets did not your fathers persecute, who showed before of the coming of the Righteous one?\u201d 5273 And by Paul in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians like things are said: \u201cFor ye brethren became imitators of the churches of God which are in Jud\u00e6a in Christ Jesus, for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen even as they did of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drave out us, and please not God, and are contrary to all men.\u201d 5274 A prophet, then, is not without honour among the Gentiles; for either they do not know him at all, or, having learned and received him as a prophet, they honour him. And such are those who are of the Church. Prophets suffer dishonour, first, when they are persecuted, according to historical fact, by the people, and, secondly, when their prophecy is not believed by the people. For if they had believed Moses and the prophets they would have believed Christ, who showed that when men believed Moses and the prophets, belief in Christ logically followed, and that when men did not believe Christ they did not believe Moses. 5275 Moreover, as by the transgression of the law he who sins is said to dishonour God, so by not believing in that which is prophesied the prophet is dishonoured by the man who disbelieves the prophecies. And so far as the literal truth is concerned, it is useful to recount what things Jeremiah suffered among the people in relation to which he said, \u201cAnd I said, I will not speak, nor will I call upon the name of the Lord.\u201d 5276 And again, elsewhere, \u201cI was continually being mocked.\u201d 5277 And how great sufferings he endured from the then king of Israel are written in his prophecy. And it is also written that some of the people often came to stone Moses to death; for his fatherland was not the stones of any place, but the people who followed him, among whom also he was dishonoured. And Isaiah is reported to have been sawn asunder by the people; and if any one does not accept the statement because of its being found in the Apocryphal Isaiah, 5278 let him believe what is written thus in the Epistle to the Hebrews, \u201cThey were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted;\u201d 5279 for the expression, \u201cThey were sawn asunder,\u201d refers to Isaiah, just as the words, \u201cThey were slain with the sword,\u201d refer to Zacharias, who was slain \u201cbetween the sanctuary and the altar,\u201d 5280 as the Saviour taught, bearing testimony, as I think, to a Scripture, though not extant in the common and widely circulated books, but perhaps in apocryphal books. And they, too, were dishonoured in their own country among the Jews who went about \u201cin sheep-skins, in goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted,\u201d and so on; 5281 \u201cFor all that will to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.\u201d 5282 And probably because Paul knew this, p. 426 \u201cThat a prophet has no honour in his own country,\u201d though he preached the Word in many places he did not preach it in Tarsus. And the Apostles on this account left Israel and did that which had been enjoined on them by the Saviour, \u201cMake disciples of all the nations,\u201d 5283 and, \u201cYe shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Jud\u00e6a and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.\u201d 5284 For they did that which had been commanded them in Jud\u00e6a and Jerusalem; but, since a prophet has no honour in his own country, when the Jews did not receive the Word, they went away to the Gentiles. Consider, too, if, because of the fact that the saying, \u201cI will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy,\u201d 5285 has been fulfilled in the churches from the Gentiles, you can say that those formerly of the world and who by believing became no longer of the world, having received the Holy Spirit in their own country\u2014that is, the world\u2014and prophesying, have not honour, but are dishonoured. Wherefore blessed are they who suffer the same things as the prophets, according to what was said by the Saviour, \u201cFor in the same manner did their fathers unto the prophets.\u201d 5286 Now if any one who attends carefully to these things be hated and attacked, because of his living with rigorous austerity, and his reproof of sinners, as a man who is persecuted and reproached for the sake of righteousness, he will not only not be grieved, but will rejoice and be exceeding glad, being assured that, because of these things, he has great reward in heaven from Him who likened him to the prophets on the ground of his having suffered the same things. Therefore, he who zealously imitates the prophetic life, and attains to the spirit which was in them, must be dishonoured in the world, and in the eyes of sinners, to whom the life of the righteous man is a burden.\nProbably the Ascensio Isai\u00e6. Cf. Orig. Ep. ad Afric. c. 9.\n425:5279 425:5280\nMatt. xxiii. 35. Cf. Orig. Ep. ad Afric. c. 9.\n425:5281 425:5282 426:5283 426:5284 426:5285 426:5286","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IX: Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.: Chapter XVIII","type":"page"}