Twenty-fifth Sunday After Pentecost (Fifth Sunday after Epiphany)
Sunday Sermons Volume 1, page 329 paragraph 26
EXPOSITION FROM THE CATENA AUREA
And when the blade was sprung up, and had, etc.
CHRYSOSTOM. As above: In what follows He accurately describes the character of heretics: And when the blade as sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. At first heretics conceal themselves. When however they have acquired a certain security, should anyone enter into conversation with them, they begin to pour out their poison.
AUGUSTINE, as above: Or again: when man begins to be spiritual, looking carefully into all things, then errors begin to reveal themselves to him. For he recognises in what he hears or reads, that which is opposed to the rule of faith; and until he has become strengthened in these same spiritual things error will have power over him. It is for this reason that so many of the falsities of the heretics come out from under the Christian name.