Reading Scripture in Lent with the Church Fathers: Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Isaiah 5:7-16; Genesis 4:8-15; Proverbs 5:1-15

Isaiah 5:8. You see, even if many people do not admit this in so many words but claim to believe in the doctrine of the resurrection and future retribution, nevertheless I take notice not of their words but of what they do day to day. That is to say, if you are looking forward to resurrection and retribution, why go chasing the values of this life to such an extent? Why, tell me, do you put yourself to such trouble day in and day out amassing more possessions than there is sand on the seashore, not to mention property and dwellings, as well as buying baths, often acquiring these things through robbery and greed and thus fulfilling that saying from the inspired author “Woe to those who add house to house, and join field to field so as to steal from their neighbor”? Cannot this sort of thing be seen happening day after day? One person says, “That house casts a terrible shadow on mine,” and he invents countless pretexts to get hold of it, while another lays hold of a poor person’s property and makes it his own. And what in fact is worse, remarkable and unheard of and quite beyond excuse, is for a person comfortably situated in one locality being able to move elsewhere without any good reason for wanting to, either on account of a change of circumstances or because constrained by physical disability; all over the place, in city after city, he is bent on procuring monuments to his own avarice and having timeless effigies of his own evil for all to see. He heaps all sins of this kind on his own head without feeling his heavy and troublesome burden, whereas enjoyment of them he leaves for others, not only after his departure from this life but even here before his demise. You see, no matter what he wishes, he is stripped of his possessions, they are all squandered, so to say, by his friends and left in tatters without the smallest part of them falling to him to enjoy. Yet why do I say enjoy? Even if he wanted, how could he with one stomach manage to dispose of such an abundance of good things?
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

Isaiah 5:10. There are many instances in which the land suffers because of people’s sins. Why are you surprised if the people’s sin makes the land infertile and unfruitful when we caused it to be corrupt in the first place (and will again make it incorruptible)?… See Noah, for example. When humanity had become utterly perverse, turmoil ensued everywhere. Everything—the seed, the plants, all types of animals, the land, the sea, the air, the mountains, the valleys, the hills, the cities, the ramparts, the houses and the towers—everything was covered by the flood. When the time came for humanity to be replenished, the land was restored to the order and beauty it had before. It is clear that the land was restored in part as an honor to humanity.
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

Isaiah 5:13. What do servants think of themselves when they dare to despise the Lord’s precepts, not even condescending to reread the letters of invitation whereby he asks them to the blessedness of his kingdom? If any one of us sends a letter to his administrator and he in turn not only fails to do what is commanded but even refuses to read over the orders, that person deserves to receive punishment, not pardon; imprisonment, not freedom. Similarly, one who refuses to read the sacred writings that have been transmitted from the eternal country should fear that he perhaps will not receive eternal rewards and even not escape endless punishment. So dangerous is it for us not to read the divine precepts that the prophet mournfully exclaims, “Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge.” … Doubtless, if a person fails to seek God in this world through the sacred lessons, God will refuse to recognize him in eternal bliss.
St Caesarius of Arles (6th century)

Genesis 4:9. Cain was at once the most wicked and foolish of men in believing that for committing the greatest of crimes it would be sufficient if he avoided other human witnesses. In fact God was the primary witness to his fratricide. Because of this, I think he then shared the opinion held by many today: that God pays no attention to earthly affairs; neither does he see those done by wicked men. There is no doubt that Cain, when summoned by the word of God after his misdeed, answered that he knew nothing of his brother’s murder. He believed God was so ignorant of what had been done that he thought this most deadly crime could be covered by a lie. But it turned out otherwise than he thought. When God condemned him, he realized that God, whom he thought had not seen his crime of murder, had seen him.
Salvian the Presbyter of Marseille (5th century)

Genesis 4:10. The divine Scripture always cries out and speaks; hence God also says to Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me.” Blood, to be sure, has no voice, but innocent blood that has been spilled is said to cry out not by words but by its very existence. [It makes] demands of the Lord not with eloquent discourse but with anger over the crime committed. It does not accuse the wrongdoer with words so much as bind him by the accusation of his own conscience. The evil deed may seem to be excused when it is explained away with words. But it cannot be excused if it is made present to the conscience. For in silence and without contradiction the wrongdoer’s conscience always convicts and judges him.
St Maximus of Turin (5th century)

Genesis 5:11. You see, since Cain perpetrated practically the same evil as the serpent, which like an instrument served the devil’s purposes, and as the serpent introduced mortality by means of deceit, in like manner Cain deceived his brother, led him out into open country, raised his hand in armed assault against him and committed murder. Hence, as God said to the serpent, “Cursed are you beyond all the wild animals of the earth,” so to Cain too when he committed the same evil as the serpent.
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

Genesis 4:13. The punishment of which God spoke seems to be excessively harsh, but rightly understood it gives us a glimpse of his great solicitude. God wanted men of later times to exercise self-control. Therefore, he designed the kind of punishment that was capable of setting Cain free from his sin. If God had immediately destroyed him, Cain would have disappeared, his sin would have stayed concealed, and he would have remained unknown to men of later times. But as it is, God let him live a long time with that bodily tremor of his. The sight of Cain’s palsied limbs was a lesson for all he met. It served to teach all men and exhort them never to dare do what he had done, so that they might not suffer the same punishment. And Cain himself became a better man again. His trembling, his fear, the mental torment that never left him, his physical paralysis kept him, as it were, shackled. They kept him from leaping again to any other like deed of bold folly. They constantly reminded him of his former crime. Through them he achieved greater self-control in his soul
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

Genesis 4:15. Like a slave, Cain received a mark and he could not escape death. Thus is the sinner a slave to fear, a slave to desire, a slave to greed, a slave to lust, a slave to sin, a slave to anger. Though such a man appears to himself free, he is more a slave than if he were under tyrants.
St Ambrose of Milan (4th century) 

Proverbs 5:3. In a very short time [the devil] leads the proud and wicked to death on a broad and spacious path. Christ our Lord, on the contrary, leads the humble and obedient to life on the straight and narrow path. Both of these roads, the wide one and the narrow one, have an end and are very short. Labor is not long on the narrow road, nor is joy lengthy on the broad one. Those whom the broad way of wickedness delights, after brief joy will have endless punishment. Those who follow Christ on the narrow way, after brief tribulations will merit to reach eternal rewards. If a layman who is in the world possesses pride, it is a sin for him. If a monk is proud, it is a sacrilege. You ought to show yourselves living so holy a life, so justly and piously in such a way that your merits may not only suffice for you but also find pardon in this world for other sinners. If we do not bridle our tongue, our religion is not true but false; and it would have been better not to have made a vow than after the vow not to do what was promised.
St Caesarius of Arles (6th century)

Proverbs 5:15.  “Drink water out of your own cistern,” that is, examine your own resources, do not go to the springs belonging to others, but from your own streams gather for yourself the consolations of life. Do you have metal plates, clothing, beasts of burden, utensils of every kind? Sell them; permit all things to go except your [soul’s] liberty.
St Basil the Great (4th century)

“Drink the waters from your own wells, fresh water from your own source.” … As the prophet Isaiah declares, “You will be like a well-watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters will never fail. And places emptied for ages will be built up in you. You will lift up the foundations laid by generation after generation. You will be called the builder of fences, the one who turns the pathways toward peace.” … And so it will happen that not only the whole thrust and thought of your heart but even all the wanderings and the straying of your thoughts will turn into a holy and unending meditation on the law of God.
St John Cassian (5th century)

Attempt, O hearer, to have your own well and your own spring, so that you too, when you take up a book of the Scriptures, may begin even from your own understanding to bring forth some meaning, and in accordance with those things which you have learned in the church, you too attempt to drink from the fountain of your own abilities. You have the nature of “living water” within you. There are within you perennial veins and streams flowing with rational understanding, if only they have not been filled with earth and rubbish. But get busy to dig out your earth and to clean out the filth, that is, to remove the idleness of your natural bent and to cast out the inactivity of your heart. 
Origen (3rd century)