And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
All Commentaries on Matthew 13:50 Go To Matthew 13
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Hom. in Ev., xi. 4: Or otherwise; The Holy Church is likened to a net, because it is given into the hands of fishers, and by it each man is drawn into the heavenly kingdom out of the waves of this present world, that he should not be drowned in the depth of eternal death. This net gathers of every kind offishes, because the wise and the foolish, the free and the slave, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, are called to forgiveness of sin; it is thenfully filled when in the end of all things the sum of the human race iscompleted.As it follows, “which, when it was filled, they drew out, and sitting down on the shore gathered the good into vessels, but the bad they cast away. "For as the sea signifies the world, so thesea shore signifies the end of the world; and as the good are gathered into vessels, but the bad cast away, so each man is received into eternal abodes, while the reprobate having lost the light of the inward kingdom are cast forth into outer darkness. But now the net of faith holds good and bad mingled together in one; but the shore shall discover what the net of the Church has brought to land.
To fear becomes us here, rather than to expound; for the torments of sinners are pronounced in plain terms, that none might plead his ignorance, should eternal punishment be threatened in obscure sayings.
