Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.
Read Chapter 13
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Once on the shore, however, the fishing net—that is, the holy church—indicates what it has drawn in. Some fish, when they have been caught, cannot be changed. Others of us who were caught while we are wicked can become changed for the better. Let us bear this in mind as we are in the process of being caught, lest we be thrown aside on shore.
At the end of this present age the good fish are to be sorted into baskets and the bad ones thrown away. Then all the elect will be received into eternal dwellings, and the condemned will be led away into external darkness, since they have lost the light of the kingdom within them. Meanwhile the fishing net of faith holds us together as intermingled fish both good and bad.
