Hebreus 13

Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)

Hebreus 13:4

Sometimes people who commit this sin treat it lightly out of heaven knows what kind of perversity. They hunt about for heaven knows what null and worthless proofs in their support, and say, "God does not mind the sins of the flesh." Well, what about what we have heard today, "God will judge the immoral and adulterous"? So there you are, pay attention, any of you afflicted with this sort of disease. Listen to what God is saying, not to what your own prejudice is saying in favor of your sins, or to your friend, perhaps, chained with the same shackles of wickedness as yourself—though in fact he is more your enemy and his own. — SERMON 32.11

Hebreus 13:5

So keep a moderate amount of money for temporal uses; treat it as journey money, with the end in view stated in the text. Notice above all what he put first: "Free from love of money," he says, put your hand in the purse in such a way that you release your heart from it. — SERMON 177.3

Hebreus 13:16

In the words of this prophet, these two things are distinguished and set forth with sufficient explicitness, that God does not require these sacrifices for their own sakes, and that He does require the sacrifices which they symbolize. In the epistle entitled "To the Hebrews" it is said, "To do good and to communicate, forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." And so, when it is written, "I desire mercy rather than sacrifice," nothing else is meant than that one sacrifice is preferred to another; for that which in common speech is called sacrifice is only the symbol of the true sacrifice. Now mercy is the true sacrifice, and therefore it is said, as I have just quoted, "with such sacrifices God is well pleased." All the divine ordinances, therefore, which we read concerning the sacrifices in the service of the tabernacle or the temple, we are to refer to the love of God and our neighbor. For "on these two commandments," as it is written, "hang all the law and the prophets." — City of God 10.5

Hebreus 13:17

In all my sermons I am presenting you with a mirror. These are not my sermons, anyway; I only speak at the Lord's command. It is only dread of him that stops me from keeping quiet. I mean to say, who would not much rather keep quiet and not have to give an account of you? But it is quite a time since I accepted this burden, and now I neither can nor should shrug it off my shoulders. You heard, my brothers and sisters, when the letter to the Hebrews was being read. — SERMON 82.15

Hebreus 13:18

We have mutual need of one another's prayers, for those reciprocal prayers are enkindled by charity and—like a sacrifice offered on the altar of piety—are fragrant and pleasing to the Lord. If the apostles used to ask for prayers on their own behalf, how much more does it behoove me to do so? — SERMON 305A.10