{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/107/1070091.htm","path":"chr/ecf/107/1070091.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/107/1070091.htm","text":"1. The Lord, in exhorting His servants to endure with patience the hatred of the world, proposes to them no greater and better example than His own; seeing that, as the Apostle Peter says, \u201cChrist suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps.\u201d 1462 And if we really do so, we do it by His assistance, who said, \u201cWithout me ye can do nothing.\u201d But further, to those to whom He had already said, \u201cIf the world hate you, know that it hated me before [it hated] you,\u201d He now also says in the word you have just been hearing, when the Gospel was read, \u201cRemember my word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.\u201d Now in saying, \u201cThe servant is not greater than his lord,\u201d does He not clearly indicate how He would have us understand what He had said above, \u201cHenceforth I call you not servants\u201d? 1463 For, you see, He calleth them servants. For what else can the words imply, \u201cThe servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you\u201d? It is clear, therefore, that when it is said, \u201cHenceforth I call you not servants,\u201d He is to be understood as speaking of that servant 1464 who abideth not in the house for ever, 1465 but is characterized by the fear which love casteth out; 1466 whereas, when it is here said, \u201cThe servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you,\u201d that servant is meant who is distinguished by the clean fear which endureth for ever. 1467 For this is the servant who is yet to hear, \u201cWell done, thou good servant: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.\u201d 1468\n2. \u201cBut all these things,\u201d He says, \u201cwill they do unto you for my name\u2019s sake, because they know not Him that sent me.\u201d And what are \u201call these things\u201d that \u201cthey will do,\u201d but what He has just said, namely, that they will hate and persecute you, and despise your word? For if they kept not their word, and yet neither hated nor persecuted them; or if they even hated, but did not persecute them: it would not be all these things that they did. But \u201call these things will they do unto you for my name\u2019s sake,\u201d\u2014what else is that but to say, they will hate me in you, they will persecute me in you; and your word, just because it is mine, they will not keep? For \u201call these things will they do unto you for my name\u2019s sake:\u201d not for yours, but mine. So much the more miserable, therefore, are those who do such things on account of that name, as those are blessed who suffer such things in its behalf: as He Himself elsewhere saith, \u201cBlessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness\u2019 sake.\u201d 1469 For that is on my account, or \u201cfor my name\u2019s sake:\u201d because, as we are taught by the apostle, \u201cHe is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and santification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.\u201d 1470 For the wicked do such things to the wicked, but not for righteousness\u2019 sake; and therefore both are alike miserable, those who do, and those who suffer them. The good also do such things to the wicked: where, although the former do so for righteousness\u2019 sake, yet the latter suffer them not on the same behalf.\n3. But some one says, If, when the wicked persecute the good for the name of Christ, the good suffer for righteousness\u2019 sake, then surely it is for righteousness\u2019 sake that the wicked do so to them; and if such is the case, then also, when the good persecute the wicked for righteousness\u2019 sake, it is for righteousness\u2019 sake likewise that the wicked suffer. For if the wicked can assail the good with persecution for the name of Christ, why cannot the wicked suffer persecution at the hands of the good on the same account; and what is that, but for righteousness\u2019 sake? For if the good act not so on the same account as that on which the wicked suffer, because the good do so for righteousness\u2019 sake, while the wicked suffer for unrighteousness, so then neither can the wicked act so on the same account as that for which the good suffer, because the wicked do so by unrighteousness, while the good suffer for righteousness\u2019 sake. And how then will that be true, \u201cAll these things will they do unto you for my name\u2019s sake,\u201d when the former do it not for the name of Christ, that is, for righteousness\u2019 sake, but because of their own iniquity? Such a question is solved in this way, if only we understand the words, p. 357 \u201cAll these things will they do unto you for my name\u2019s sake,\u201d as referring entirely to the righteous, as if it had been said, All these things will ye suffer at their hands for my name\u2019s sake, so that the words, \u201cthey will do unto you,\u201d are equivalent to these, Ye will suffer at their hands. But if \u201cfor my name\u2019s sake\u201d is to be taken as if He had said, For my name\u2019s sake which they hate in you, so also may the other be taken for that righteousness\u2019 sake which they hate in you; and in this way the good, when they institute persecution against the wicked, may be rightly said to do so both for righteousness\u2019 sake, in their love for which they persecute the wicked, and for that wickedness\u2019 sake which they hate in the wicked themselves; and so also the wicked may be said to suffer both for the iniquity that is punished in their persons, and for the righteousness which is exercised in their punishment.\n4. It may also be inquired, if the wicked also persecute the wicked, just as ungodly princes and judges, while they were the persecutors of the godly, certainly also punished murderers and adulterers, and all classes of evil-doers whom they ascertained to be acting contrary to the public laws, how are we to understand the words of the Lord, \u201cIf ye were of the world, the world would love its own\u201d? (John 15.19.) For those whom it punisheth cannot be loved by the world, which, we see, generally punisheth the classes of crimes mentioned above, save only that the world is both in those who punish such crimes, and in those that love them. Therefore that world, which is to be understood as existing in the wicked and ungodly, both hateth its own in respect of that section of men in whose case it inflicts injury on the criminal, and loveth its own in respect of that other section in whose case it shows favor to its own partners in criminality. Hence, \u201cAll these things will they do unto you for my name\u2019s sake,\u201d is said either in reference to that for the sake of which ye suffer, or to that on account of which they themselves so deal with you, because that which is in you they both hate and persecute. And He added, \u201cBecause they know not Him that sent me.\u201d This is to be understood as spoken of that knowledge of which it is also elsewhere recorded, \u201cBut to know Thee is perfect intelligence.\u201d 1471 For those who with such a knowledge know the Father, by whom Christ was sent, can in no wise persecute those whom Christ is gathering; for they also themselves are being gathered by Christ along with the others.\nSee above, Tract. LXXXV. sec. 3.\n356:1465 356:1466 356:1467 356:1468 356:1469 356:1470 357:1471","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII: Lectures or Tra...","type":"page"}