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MARK 9:50 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Mark 9:49Mark 10
“Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.”
Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other — the salt saying concludes the chapter and provides a bridge from the fire imagery to the community exhortation. Salt is good — its preserving, flavoring, purifying properties are genuinely valuable. But salt that has lost its saltiness is useless — it cannot restore itself. Have salt among yourselves is the call for the disciples to maintain the genuine, preserving qualities of the kingdom community: the willingness to serve the lowest, to welcome the child, to not cause stumbling. And be at peace with each other is the chapter's practical conclusion: the greatness argument of verse 34 is to end.

Church Fathers on Mark 9:50

Because the Lord had taught us not to offend those who believe on Him, He now as next in order warns us how much we should beware of those who offend us, that is, who by their words or conduct strive to drag us into the perdition of sin; wherefore He says, 'And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off.'

Bede · 8th century

Or else, 'It is better for thee to enter into life maimed,' that is, without the chief place, for which you have wished, than having two hands to go into eternal fire. The two hands for high station are humility and pride; cut off pride, keeping to the estate of lowliness.

Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

But those who hold that both of these, namely, the fire and the worm, belong to the pains of the soul, and not of the body, say also that those who are separated from the kingdom of God are tortured, as with fire, by the pangs of a soul repenting too late and hopelessly; and they not unfitly contend that fire may be put for that burning grief, as says the Apostle, 'Who is offended, and I burn not?' [2 Cor 11:29]

Augustine · 4th century · de Civ. Dei, 21, 9
Read all 15 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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