Patristic Lectionary (Year 1) – Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – 5 February 2023

Patristic Lectionary (Year 1) – Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Septuagesima Sunday) – 5 February 2023

[ Consonant with both Anglicanism’s and monasticism’s love of patristic theology-spirituality, this is a series of occasional selections from a two-year lectionary for the Divine Office that draws mostly from patristic writings.  The lectionary was initially edited by Stephen Mark Holmes (University of Edinburgh School of Divinity) and subsequently re-edited and formatted by Michele Freyhauf (Durham University).  Click here for the link to the lectionary.  R. M. Healey’s edition is also used if there are lacunae in the Durham edition.  Click here for the link to Healey’s formatting of the lectionary. ]

[ Image: Fourth-century marble door lintel and marble relief, excavated at Corinth.  What is left of the lintel reads “goge (H)ebr…”  in Greek, i.e., “(Syna)gogue of the (H)ebr(ews).”  Menorahs decorate the lower stone.  Likely from two or three centuries after Paul’s sojourn in Corinth, the fact that these stones are of marble suggests the Jewish community in Corinth was prosperous and had been at the time of Paul.  Crispus and Sosthenes of 1 Corinthians might be the two mentioned in Acts 18, the first having been the synagogue official who was baptized by Paul and, tradition says, became bishop of Chalcedon and was later martyred; the second, Sosthenes, would have been the synagogue official beaten by the crowd (Acts 18) and a possible convert to Christianity as well. ]

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1 Corinthians 1:1-17

Divisions among the Faithful

Paul, called by the will of God to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge – even as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you – so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ; who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarrelling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius; lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any one else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

St. Clement of Rome

Letter to the Corinthians 49-50

Let anyone truly possessed by the love of Christ keep his commandments. Who can express the binding power of divine love? Who can find words for the splendour of its beauty? Beyond all description are the heights to which it lifts us. Love unites us to God; it cancels innumerable sins, has no limits to its endurance, bears everything patiently. Love is neither servile nor arrogant. It does not provoke schisms or form cliques, but always acts in harmony with others. By it all God’s chosen ones have been sanctified; without it, it is impossible to please him. Out of love the Lord took us to himself; because he loved us and it was God’s will, our Lord Jesus Christ gave his life’s blood for us – he gave his body for our body, his soul for our soul.

See then, beloved, what a great and wonderful thing love is, and how inexpressible its perfection. Who are worthy to possess it unless God makes them so? To him therefore we must turn, begging of his mercy that there may be found in us a love free from human partiality and beyond reproach. Every generation from Adam’s time to ours has passed away; but those who by God’s grace were made perfect in love have a dwelling now among the saints, and when at last the kingdom of Christ appears, they will be revealed.

Blessed are we, beloved, if love enables us to live in harmony and in the observance of God’s commandments, for then it will also gain for us the remission of our sins. Scripture pronounces blessed those whose transgressions are pardoned, whose sins are forgiven. Blessed is the man, it says, to whom the Lord imputes no fault, on whose lips there is no guile. This is the blessing given those whom God has chosen through Jesus Christ our Lord. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

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