Patristic A.D. 397
“For what is more afar off than to depart from one’s self, to be separate not by country but by habits. For he who severs himself from Christ is an exile from his country, and a citizen of this world. Fitly then does he waste his patrimony who departs from the Church.”
Catena Aurea: Gospel of Luke, as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on Luke 15:11-16
PD · J. H. Newman (Oxford, 1843) ↗