Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

The old man said: ‘If we are on the watch to see our own faults, we shall not see those of our neighbor. It is folly for a man who has a dead person in his house to leave him there and go to weep over his neighbor’s dead. To die to one’s neighbor is this: To bear you won faults and not to pay attention to anyone else wondering whether they are good or bad.
Do no harm to a...

John Chrysostom teaches us: “Jesus calls this the true bread, not because the miracle of the manna was false, but because it was a type and not the very truth itself.” “After Jesus says, ‘Moses did not give,’ he does not say, ‘I give,’ but says that the Father, and not Moses, gives.”
“When they heard this, the people replied: ‘Give us this bread to eat.’ They still though...

Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!
Origen was one of the first Church Fathers who interpreted this troublesome verse allegorically, as did St Ambrose, who catechized and baptized the young St Augustine. Origen teaches us that “the little ones of Babylon, which signifies confusion, are those troublesome sinful thoughts that ar...