Alcuin of York — on Rev 3:15-16 (COMMENTARY ON REVELATION)

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth. The cold ones are those whom either the perfidy of the Jews or the error of the Gentiles keeps bound, because the one who said, I will sit in the sides of the North, [Is. 14:13] binds them with his ice. On the other hand, the hot ones are those whose hearts the South wind, that is the Holy Spirit, comes to and touches with the heat of faith, so that, the hardness of incredulity being softened and the cold of error being lost, they emanate the heat of good works. Both someone cold and someone hot often become lukewarm: someone cold becomes lukewarm when they turn away from the cold of iniquity but do not pass to the perfect heat of justice, and someone hot becomes lukewarm if they come down from the heat of justice to the inactivity of sluggishness. Then, we have all learned from experience that something cold or hot easily passes into our body, but something lukewarm provokes nausea and is thrown right out of the mouth. So can teachers more easily attract an unfaithful person to faith or a perverted Christian to fervor for good work, than they can a lukewarm person; and so they forsake him, as a farmer leaves an unfruitful land and cultivates the one from which he has already plucked out the thorns and which is fruitful, or the one which, albeit still full of thorns, seems to promise it will be fruitful.”