TRV
Clement of Alexandria
Ante-Nicene · to AD 325
904 passages across 53 books of the Bible · Who was this?
On Luke
20 of 93-
Luke 13:34
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen her chickens!" And Jerusalem is, when interpreted, "a vision of peace." He therefore shows prophetically, that those who peacefully contemplate sacred things are in manifold ways trained to their calling. What then? He "would," and could not. How often, and where? Twice; by the prophets, and by the advent. The expression, then, "How often," shows wisdom to be manifold; every mode of quantity and quality, it by all means saves some, both in time and in eternity.
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Luke 14:8
He says accordingly somewhere, "When thou art called to a wedding, recline not on the highest couch; but when thou art called, fall into the lowest place; "
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Luke 14:11
"For he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth himself shall be humbled.".
For is it not thus that some of our writers have understood that man straightway on his creation received what is "according to the image "but that what is according "to the likeness "he will receive afterwards on his perfection? Now Plato, teaching that the virtuous man shall have this likeness accompanied with humility, explains the following: "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." -
Luke 14:12
He says accordingly somewhere, "When thou art called to a wedding, recline not on the highest couch; but when thou art called, fall into the lowest place;" and elsewhere, "When thou makest a dinner or a supper;" and again, "But when thou makest an entertainment, call the poor," for whose sake chiefly a supper ought to be made. And further, "A certain man made a great supper, and called many."
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Luke 14:15-24
The holy agape is the sublime and saving creation of the Lord.…An agape is in reality heavenly food, a banquet of the Word. The agape, or love, “bears all things, endures all things, hopes all things. Love never fails.” “Blessed is he who eats bread in the kingdom of God.” The most unlikely of all downfalls is charity that does not fail to be thrown down from heaven to earth among all these dainty seasonings. Do you still imagine that I refer to a meal that will be destroyed? “If I distribute my goods to the poor and do not have love,” Scripture says, “I am nothing.” The whole law and the word depend on this love. If you love the Lord your God and your neighbor, there will be a heavenly feast in heaven. The earthly feast, as we have proved from Scripture, is called a supper. It is permeated with love yet is not identified with it but is an expression of mutual and generous good will.
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Luke 14:15
"Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God."
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Luke 14:26
"But whosoever shall not hate father or mother or wife or children," they quote, "cannot be my disciple." This is not a command to hate one's family. For he says: "Honour thy father and thy mother that it may be well with thee." But what he means is this: Do not let yourself be led astray by irrational impulses and have nothing to do with the city customs. For a household consists of a family, and cities of households, as Paul also says of those who are absorbed in marriage that they aim to "please the world."
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Luke 15:7
For "great is the joy before the Father when one sinner is saved"
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Luke 15:10
For it is said there is great and exceeding joy and festival in the heavens with the Father and the angels when one sinner turns and repents.
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Luke 15:11
For it were not seemly that we, after the fashion of the rich man's son in the Gospel, should, as prodigals, abuse the Father's gifts; but we should use them, without undue attachment to them, as having command over ourselves. For we are enjoined to reign and rule over meats, not to be slaves to them.
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Luke 16:9
"Make to you friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations;" showing that by nature all property which a man possesses in his own power is not his own. And from this unrighteousness it is permitted to work a righteous and saving thing, to refresh some one of those who have an everlasting habitation with the Father.
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Luke 16:13
I am informed, however, that Nicolaus never had relations with any woman other than the wife he married, and that of his children his daughters remained virgins to their old age, and his son remained uncorrupted. In view of this it was an act of suppression of passion when he brought before the apostles the wife on whose account he was jealous. He taught what it meant to "abuse the flesh" by restraining the distracting passions. For, as the Lord commanded, he did not wish to serve two masters, pleasure and God. It is said that Matthias also taught that one should fight the flesh and abuse it, never allowing it to give way to licentious pleasure, so that the soul might grow by faith and knowledge.
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Luke 16:16
This, then, is the type of "the law and the prophets which were until John;" while he, though speaking more perspicuously as no longer prophesying, but pointing out as now present, Him, who was proclaimed symbolically from the beginning, nevertheless said, "I am not worthy to loose the latchet of the Lord's shoe." For he confesses that he is not worthy to baptize so great a Power; for it behooves those, who purify others, to free the soul from the body and its sins, as the foot from the thong.
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Luke 16:17
Perhaps by the iota and tittle His righteousness cries, "If you come right unto Me, I will also come right to you; but if crooked, I also will come crooked, says the Lord of hosts;" intimating that the ways of sinners are intricate and crooked. For the way right and agreeable to nature which is intimated by the iota of Jesus, is His goodness, which constantly directs those who believe from hearing. "There shall not, therefore, pass from the law one iota or one tittle," neither from the right and good the mutual promises, nor from the crooked and unjust the punishment assigned to them. "For the Lord does good to the good, but those who turn aside into crooked ways God will lead with the workers of iniquity."
(as quoted by Corderius, AD 1564) From the Catena on Luke, Edited by Corderius
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Luke 16:18
Now that the Scripture counsels marriage, and allows no release from the union, is expressly contained in the law, "Thou shalt not put away thy wife, except for the cause of fornication;" and it regards as fornication, the marriage of those separated while the other is alive. Not to deck and adorn herself beyond what is becoming, renders a wife free of calumnious suspicion, while she devotes herself assiduously to prayers and supplications; avoiding frequent departures from the house, and shutting herself up as far as possible from the view of all not related to her, and deeming housekeeping of more consequence than impertinent trifling. "He that taketh a woman that has been put away," it is said, "committeth adultery; and if one puts away his wife, he makes her an adulteress," that is, compels her to commit adultery. And not only is he who puts her away guilty of this, but he who takes her, by giving to the woman the opportunity of sinning; for did he not take her, she would return to her husband.
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Luke 17:4
Further, in respect to forbearance. "If thy brother," it is said, "sin against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. If he sin against thee seven times in a day, and turn to thee the seventh time, and say, I repent, forgive him."
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Luke 17:5
Such were the apostles, in whose case it is said that "faith removed mountains and transplanted trees." Whence, perceiving the greatness of its power, they asked "that faith might be added to them;" a faith which salutarily bites the soil "like a grain of mustard," and grows magnificently in it, to such a degree that the reasons of things sublime rest on it.
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Luke 17:6
Such were the apostles, in whose case it is said that "faith removed mountains and transplanted trees."
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Luke 17:28
It is the Lord himself who says: "That which God has joined together, let no man put asunder." And again: "As it was in the days of Noah, they were marrying, and giving in marriage, building and planting, and as it was in the days of Lot, so shall be the coming of the Son of man." And to show that he is not referring to the heathen he adds: "When the Son of man is come, shall he find faith on the earth?"
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Luke 18:14
The liars and the proud, too, He threatens; the former thus: "Woe to them that call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter;" and the latter: "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." "For he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth himself shall be humbled."