Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part III/Conference XXIV/Chapter 22

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Chapter XXII.

A question how we ought to understand what the gospel says “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Germanus: As you have given us a remedy for all delusions, and by God’s grace all the wiles of the devil by which we were harassed, have been exposed by your teaching, we beg that you will also explain to us this that is said in the gospel: “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”[1] For it seems tolerably opposed to that saying of the prophet where it is said: “For the sake of the words of Thy lips I kept hard ways;” while even the Apostle says: “All who will live godly in Christ suffer persecutions.”[2] But whatever is hard and fraught with persecutions cannot be easy and light.


Footnotes[edit]

  1. S. Matt. xi. 30.
  2. Ps. xvi. (xvii.) 4; 2 Tim. iii. 12.