Peter Chrysologus
5th century · AD 450 · Pre-Schism Western · 160 passages
Background on Peter Chrysologus
In his own words on Numbers
- Numbers 31:8
The soothsayer Balaam set up a scandal for the people of Israel when he went to meet their warriors, not with men in armor but with women arrayed in all their finery. He hoped to make the men drop their arms for debauchery, change their triumph into disgrace, bring the avengers of guilt into guilt themselves and—to put it briefly—to profane all their holiness into depravity. As a result of it all, when Moses was meting out punishment, he sentenced Balaam thus: "Kill Balaam the soothsayer, because he set up a stumbling block before the children of Israel."
SERMON 27
Quoted verbatim from public-domain English translations — including the Ante-Nicene and Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers and the early patristic chain-commentary compiled in the Catena Aurea. Each quotation links to its source.