{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/009/0090483.htm","path":"chr/ecf/009/0090483.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/009/0090483.htm","text":"10. The Man Who Owed Many Talents.\nNext we must speak in regard to this, \u201cAnd when he had begun to reckon, there was brought unto him one which owed many talents.\u201d 6104 The sense of this appears to me to be as follows: The season of beginning the judgment is with the house of God, who says, as also it is written in Ezekiel, to those who are appointed to attend to punishments, \u201cBegin ye with My saints;\u201d 6105 and it is like \u201cthe twinkling of an eye;\u201d but, the time of making a reckoning includes the same \u201ctwinkling,\u201d ideally apprehended, for we are not forgetful of what has been previously said of those who owe more. Wherefore it is not written, when he was making reckoning, but it is said, \u201cWhen he began to reckon,\u201d there was brought, at the beginning of his making a reckoning, one who owed many talents; he had lost tens of thousands of talents, having been entrusted with great things, and having had many things committed to his care, but he had brought no gain to his master, but had lost tens of thousands so that he owed many talents; and, perhaps on this account, he owed many talents, seeing that he followed often the woman, who was sitting upon the talent of lead, whose name is wickedness. 6106 But observe here that every great sin is a loss of the talents of the master of the house, and such sins are committed by fornicators, adulterers, abusers of themselves with men, effeminate, idolaters, murderers. Perhaps then the one who is brought to the king owing many talents has committed no small sin but all that are great and heinous; and if you were to seek for him among men, perhaps you would find him to be \u201cthe man of sin, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against every God or object of worship;\u201d 6107 but if you seek him outside the number of men, who can this be but the devil who has ruined so many who received him, who wrought sin in them. For \u201cman is a great thing, and a pitiful man is precious,\u201d 6108 precious so as to be worthy of a talent, whether of gold like as the lamp which was equal to p. 501 a talent of gold, 6109 or of silver or of any kind of material whatsoever understood intellectually, the symbols of which are recorded in the Words of the Days, 6110 when David became enriched with many talents of which the number is mentioned, so many talents of gold, and so many of silver, and of the rest of the material there named, from which the temple of God was built.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IX: Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.: Chapter X","type":"page"}