Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 56

LV.&#8212;Of the Seed of the Tares.

Of the seed of the tares, who stand mingled in the Church.&#160; When the times of the harvest are filled up, the tares that have sprung up are separated from the fruit, because God had not sent them.&#160; The husbandman separates all those collected tares.&#160; The law is our field; whoever does good in it, assuredly the Ruler Himself will afford a true repose, for the tares are burned with fire.&#160; If, therefore, you think that under one they are delaying, you are wrong.&#160; I designate you as barren Christians; cursed was the fig-tree without fruit in the word of the Lord, and immediately it withered away.&#160; Ye do not works; ye prepare no gift for the treasury, and yet ye thus vainly think to deserve well of the Lord.