Matthew 5:9

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Verse 8 Read Chapter 5 Verse 10

Ambrose of Milan

AD 397

When you have made your inward parts clean from every spot of sin, that dissentions and contentions may not proceed from your temper, begin peace within yourself, that so you may extend it to others.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

There is in the inner person a kind of daily quarrel; a praiseworthy battle acts to keep what is better from being overcome by what is worse. The struggle is to keep desire from conquering the mind and to keep lust from conquering wisdom. This is the steadfast peace that you ought to develop in yourself, that what is better in you may be in charge of what is worse. The better part in you, moreover, is that part in which God’s image is found. This is called the mind, the intellect. There faith burns, there hope is strengthened, there charity is kindled. ..

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

Where there is no contention, there is perfect peace. And that is why the children of God are peacemakers, because nothing can finally stand against God. In this way the children possess a likeness to God the Father. And those who calm their passions and subject them to reason, to mind and spirit, and who keep their carnal lusts under control engender peace within themselves. Thereby they themselves become the kingdom of God. In this kingdom all things are so well ordered that everything in humanity that is common to us and to the beasts is spontaneously governed by that which is chief and preeminent in humanity, namely, the reasoning mind. This preeminent human faculty is itself subject to a still higher power, which is Truth itself, the only begotten Son of God. .

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

To the peacemakers the likeness of God is given, as being perfectly wise, and formed after the image of God by means of the regeneration of the renewed man: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

Wisdom corresponds to the peacemakers, in whom all things are now brought into order, and no passion is in a state of rebellion against reason, but all things together obey the spirit of man, while he himself also obeys God: and of them it is here said, Blessed are the peacemakers.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

It is the perfection of peace, where nothing offers opposition; and the children of God are peacemakers, because nothing resists God, and surely children ought to have the likeness of their father. Now, they are peacemakers in themselves who, by bringing in order all the motions of their soul, and subjecting them to reason— i.e. to the mind and spirit— and by having their carnal lusts thoroughly subdued, become a kingdom of God: in which all things are so arranged, that that which is chief and pre-eminent in man rules without resistance over the other elements, which are common to us with the beasts; and that very element which is pre-eminent in man, i.e. mind and reason, is brought under subjection to something better still, which is the truth itself, the only-begotten Son of God. For a man is not able to rule over things which are inferior, unless he subjects himself to what is superior. And this is the peace which is given on earth to men of goodwill; this the life of the fully deve... Read More

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

City of God, book 19, ch. 13: Peace is the fixedness of order; by order, I meanan arrangement of things like and unlike giving to each its own place. And as there is no man who would not willingly have joy, so is there no man who would not have peace; since even those who go to war desire nothing more than by warto come to a glorious peace. Retract., i, 19: No man can attain in this life that there be not in his members a law resisting the law of his mind. But the peacemakers attain thus far by overcoming the lusts of the flesh, that in time they come to a most perfect peace. Or, because peace is then perfect when there is no where any opposition, the peacemakers are called the sons of God, because nothing resists God, and the children ought to bear the likeness of their Father.

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Chromatius of Aquileia

AD 407

The peacemakers are those who, standing apart from the stumbling block of disagreement and discord, guard the affection of fraternal love and the peace of the church under the unity of the universal faith. And the Lord in the Gospel particularly urges his disciples to guard this peace, saying, “I give you my peace; I leave you my peace.” David earlier testified that the Lord would give this peace to his church, saying, “I will listen to what the Lord speaks in me, for he will pronounce his peace to his people and upon his holy ones and to those who turn to him.” .

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Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444

The peacemaker is the one who demonstrates the harmony of the Scriptures, where others see only a contradiction: the Old with the New, the law with the prophets, Gospel with Gospel. Accordingly, having imitated the Son of God, “he shall be called a son,” having by his work grasped of the “spirit of adoption.”

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

To be peaceful ourselves and with others, and to bring such as are at variance together, will entitle us to be children of God. Thus we shall be raised to a participation in the honour of the only begotten Son of God, who descended from heaven to bring peace to man, and to reconcile him with his offended Creator. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xv.)

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Glossa Ordinaria

AD 1480

Ap. Anselm: The peacemakers have thus the place of highest honour, inasmuch ashe who is called the king’s son, is the highest in the king’s house. This beatitude is placed the seventh in order, because in the sabbath shall be given the repose of true peace, the six ages being passed away.

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Hilary of Poitiers

AD 368

The blessedness of the peacemakers is the reward of adoption, “they shall becalled the sons of God.” For God is our common parent, and no other way can we pass into His family than by living in brotherly love together.

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Jerome

AD 420

The peacemakers are pronounced blessed, they namely who make peace first within their own hearts, then between brethren at variance. For what avails it to make peace between others, while in your own heart are wars of rebellious vices.

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

The peacemakers with others are not only those who reconcile enemies, but those who unmindful of wrongs cultivate peace. That peace only is blessed which islodged in the heart, and does not consist only in words. And they who love peace, they are the sons of peace. Or, if the peacemakers are they who do not contend one with another, but reconcile those that are at strife, they are rightly called the sons of God, seeing this was the chief employment of the Only-begotten Son, to reconcile things separated, to give peace to things at war.

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Here he not only responds that they should not feud and become hateful to one another, but he is also looking for something else and something more, that we bring together others who are feuding. And again he promises a spiritual reward. What kind of reward is it? “That they themselves shall be called sons of God.” For in fact this was the crucial work of the Only Begotten: to bring together things divided and to reconcile the alienated. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Here He not only takes away altogether our own strife and hatred among ourselves, but He requires besides this something more, namely, that we should set at one again others, who are at strife. And again, the reward which He annexes is spiritual. Of what kind then is it. For they shall be called the children of God. Yea, for this became the work of the Only Begotten, to unite the divided, and to reconcile the alienated.

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Theophylact of Ochrid

AD 1107

"The peacemakers" are not only those who are themselves peaceable with all, but also those who reconcile others who are at odds. "The peacemakers" are also those who by their teaching convert the enemies of God. Just as the Only-begotten Son reconciled us to God when we were His enemies, so too are the "peacemakers" "sons of God."

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