Marcos 8
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Marcos 8:6
In expounding holy Scriptures, I am, so to speak, now breaking bread for you. If you hunger to receive it, your heart will sing out with the fullness of praise. And if you are thus made rich in your banquet, why would you then be niggardly in good works and deeds of mercy? What I am distributing to you is not my own. What you feast upon, I also feast upon. — SERMONS ON NEW TESTAMENT LESSONS 45.1
Marcos 8:8
Are you hungry? You too have been given these baskets. For those fragments were not lost. For you, too, belong to the whole church, and they are surely for your benefit. — SERMONS ON NEW TESTAMENT LESSONS 45.2
Marcos 8:10
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] Now in Matthew we read that He entered into the parts of Magdala. But we cannot doubt that it is the same place under another name; for several manuscripts even of St. Mark have only Magdala. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Marcos 8:10
After his account of the miracle of the seven loaves, Mark subjoins the same transition as is given us in Matthew, only with this difference: Matthew's expression for the locality is not Dalmanutha, as is read in certain codices, but Magedan. There is no reason, however, for questioning the fact that it is the same place that is intended under both names. For most codices, even of Mark's Gospel, give no other reading than that of Magedan. — HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS 2.51
Marcos 8:11-12
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] Let no one, however, be perplexed that the answer which Mark says was given to them, when they sought a sign from heaven, is not the same as that which Matthew relates, namely, that concerning Jonah. He says that the Lord's answer was, that no sign should be given to it; by which we must understand such an one as they asked for, that is, one from heaven; but he has omitted to say, what Matthew has related. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Marcos 8:34
How hard and painful does this appear! The Lord has required that "whoever will come after him must deny himself." But what he commands is neither hard nor painful when he himself helps us in such a way so that the very thing he requires may be accomplished.… For whatever seems hard in what is enjoined, love makes easy. — SERMONS ON NEW TESTAMENT LESSONS 46.1
Marcos 8:34
Turn, rather, to these teachings, my very dear friend: take up your cross and follow the Lord. For, when I noticed that you were being slowed down in your divine purpose by your preoccupation with domestic cares, I felt that you were being carried and dragged along by your cross rather than that you were carrying it. What else does the cross mean than the mortality of this flesh? This is our very own cross which the Lord commands us to carry that we may be as well armed as possible in following him. We suffer momentarily until death is swallowed up in victory. Then this cross itself will be crucified. The cross will be nailed to the fear of God. We would hardly be able to carry it now if it forever resisted us with free and unfettered limbs. There is no other way for you to follow the Lord except by carrying it, for how can you follow him if you are not his? — LETTER 243, TO LAETUS
Marcos 8:35
This precept by which we are enjoined to lose our life does not mean that a person should kill himself, which would be an unforgivable crime, but it does mean that one should kill that in oneself which is unduly attached to the earthly, which makes one take inordinate pleasure in this present life to the neglect of the life to come. This is the meaning of "shall hate his life" and "shall lose it." Embedded in the same admonition, he speaks most openly of the profit of gaining one's life when he says: "He that loses his life in this world shall find it unto life eternal." — LETTER 243, TO LAETUS