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This Part: 115 Pages
Page 89
22:31-34. Simeon, Simeon, behold Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not: and do you also hereafter when converted strengthen your brethren. And he said to Him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. But He said, I tell you, Peter, that the cock shall not crow to-day until you have thrice denied that You know Me.
THE prophet Isaiah bids those who embrace a life of piety towards Christ to go to the proclamations of the Gospel, saying, "You who thirst, go to the waters." But these waters are not the material waters of earth, but rather are divine and spiritual, poured forth for us by Christ Himself. For He is the river of peace, and the torrent of pleasure, and the fountain of life. And so we have heard Himself plainly saying, "Whosoever thirsts, let him come to Me and drink." Come therefore, that here also we may delight ourselves in the sacred and divine streams which now from Him: for what says He to Peter? "Simeon, Simeon, behold Satan has asked for you to sift you like wheat: but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not."
Now it is, I think, both necessary and profitable for us to know what the occasion was which led our Saviour's words to this point. The blessed disciples then had been disputing with one another, "which of them was the great one:" but the Saviour of all, as the means whereby they obtained whatsoever was useful and necessary for their good, delivered them from the guilt of ambition, by putting away from them the striving after objects such as this, and persuading them to escape from the lust of preeminence, as from a pitfall of the devil. For He said, "he who is great among you, let him be as the youngest, and he who governs as he that serves." And He further taught them that the season of honour is not so much this present time as that which is to be at the coming of His kingdom. For there they shall receive the rewards of their fidelity, and be partakers of His eternal glory, and wear a crown of surpassing honour, eating at His table, and sitting also upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
But lo! He also offers them a third assistance, as we read in the lessons before us. For He teaches us, that we must think humbly of ourselves, as being nothing, both as regards the nature of man and the readiness of our mind to fall away into sin, and as strengthened and being what we are only through Him and of Him. If therefore it is from Him that we borrow both our salvation, and our seeming to be something in virtue and piety, what reason have we for proud thoughts? For all we have is from Him, and of ourselves we have nothing. "For what have you that you did not receive? But if you also received it, why do you glory, as though you did not receive it?" So spoke the very wise Paul: and further, the blessed David also at one time says, "In God we shall make strength:" and at another again, "Our God is our house of refuge and our strength." And the prophet Jeremiah also has somewhere said, "O Lord, my strength and my house of refuge, and my help in the days of trouble." And the blessed Paul also may be brought forward, who says with great clearness, "I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me." Yes, Christ Himself also somewhere says to us, "Without Me you can do nothing.[11]
Let us then glory not in ourselves, but rather in His gifts. And if this be the state of any one's mind, what place can the desire of being set above other men find in him, when thus we are all both partakers of the same one grace, and also have the same Lord of hosts as the Giver both of our existence and of our ability to do well. To humble therefore our tendency to superciliousness, and to repress ambitious feelings, Christ shows that even he who seemed to be great is nothing and infirm. He therefore passes by the other disciples, and turns to him who is the foremost, and set at the head of the company, and says; "that Satan has many times desired to sift you as wheat:" that is, to search and try you, and expose you to intolerable blows. For it is Satan's wont to attack men of more than ordinary excellence, and, like some fierce and arrogant barbarian, he challenges to single combat those of chief repute in the ways of piety. So he challenged Job, but was defeated by his patience, and the boaster fell, being vanquished by the endurance of that triumphant hero. But human nature he makes his prey, for it is infirm, and easy to be overcome: while he is harsh and pitiless and unappeasable in heart. For, as the sacred Scripture says of him, "His heart is hard as a stone: and he stands like an anvil that cannot be beaten out [6]." Yet he is placed under the feet of the saints by Christ's might: for He has said, "Behold, I have given you to tread on serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you." "Satan therefore, He says, has desired to sift you like wheat: but I have offered supplication in your behalf, that your faith fail not."
6.[q] That is, not ductile, incapable of being spread out by hammering.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/luke-commentary-3.asp?pg=89
