João 6
Jerome · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
João 6:39
Christ speaks here of the whole of his humanity, which he had taken on him in its entirety at his birth. Then shall the sheep that was lost and was wandering in the lower world be carried healthy on the Savior's shoulders. And the sheep that was sick with sin shall be taken care of by the mercy of the Judge. — AGAINST JOHN OF JERUSALEM 34
João 6:66
The medical men called surgeons pass for being cruel but really deserve pity. For is it not pitiful to cut away the dead flesh of another person with merciless knives without being moved by his pain? Is it not pitiful that the one who is curing the patient is callous to his sufferings and has to appear as his enemy? Yet this is the order of nature. While truth is always bitter, a pleasant disposition waits upon evildoing. Isaiah goes naked without blushing as a type of the captivity to come. Jeremiah is sent from Jerusalem to the Euphrates (a river in Mesopotamia) and leaves his girdle to be marred in the Chaldean camp among the Assyrians hostile to his people. Ezekiel is told to eat bread made of mingled seeds and sprinkled with the dung of people and cattle. He has to see his wife die without shedding a tear. Amos is driven from Samaria. Why is he driven from it? Surely in this case, as in the others, because he was a spiritual surgeon who cut away the parts diseased by sin and urged people to repentance. The apostle Paul says, "Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" The Savior himself found it no different. Many of the disciples left him because his sayings seemed hard. — LETTER 40.1