And when many people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spoke by a parable:
All Commentaries on Luke 8:4 Go To Luke 8
Theophilus of Antioch
AD 184
But He went out now, not to destroy the husbandmen, or to burn up the earth, but He went outto sow. For of times the husbandman who sows, goes out for some other cause, not only to sow.
But the Son of God never ceases to sow in our hearts, for not only when teaching, but creating, He sows good seed in our hearts.
He said not that the sowerthrew some on the way side, but that it fell by the way side. For he who sows taught the rightword, but the word falls in different ways upon the hearers, so that some of them are called the way side: and it was trodden down, and the birds of the air devoured it.
But to those who are unworthy of such mysteries, they are obscurely spoken. Hence it follows, But to the rest in parables, that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. For they think they see, but see not, and hear indeed, but do not understand. For this reason Christ hides this from them, lest they should beget a greater prejudice against them, if after they had known the mysteries of Christ, they despised them. For he who understands and afterwards despises, shall be more severely punished.
