Homilies on the First Epistle of John 8.2–8.14

For, brothers, you have just heard when the Gospel was read; surely, if you had there the ear not only of the body but also of the heart. What does it say? "Beware of doing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them." Did he mean by this that whatever good we do we should hide from men's eyes and be afraid of being seen? If you fear spectators, you will have no imitators: so you ought to be seen. But you ought not to act for this, to be seen. The end of your joy ought not to be there, the goal of your gladness not there, so that you think you have obtained the whole fruit of your good work when you have been seen and praised. This is nothing. Despise yourself when you are praised: let him be praised in you who works through you. So do not do the good you do for your own praise, but for the praise of him from whom you have the power to do good. From yourself you have it to do evil; from God you have it to do well. On the contrary, see how perverse men turn things upside down. What they do well, they want to attribute to themselves; if they do evil, they want to accuse God. Turn this twisted and topsy-turvy thing, making it in a way head downward: what is above, making it below; what is below, making it above. Do you want to make God below and yourself above? You are thrown headlong, not raised up; for he is always above. What then? You do well, and God does evil? Rather, say this, if you want to speak more truly: "I do evil, he does well; and what I do well, I do well from him; for from myself, whatever I do is evil." This confession strengthens the heart and lays the foundation of love. For if we ought to hide our good works so that they are not seen by men, where is that sentence of the Lord in the sermon he gave on the mountain? Where he said this, there a little before he also said, "Let your good works shine before men." And he did not stop there, did not make an end there, but added, "And let them glorify your Father who is in heaven." And what does the apostle say? "I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which are in Christ; they only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once ravaged; and they glorified God in me." See how he too, since he became known in this way, set the end not in his own praise but in the praise of God. And as far as he himself was concerned, ravager of the Church, envious persecutor, malicious: he confesses it himself; we do not insult him. Paul loves to have his sins told by us, so that he may be glorified who healed such a disease. For the physician's hand cut the greatness of the wound and healed it. That voice from heaven threw down the persecutor and raised up the preacher; it killed Saul and gave life to Paul. For Saul was the persecutor of a holy man; from him this man had his name when he was persecuting the Christians; afterwards from Saul he became Paul. What is Paul? Small. So when he was Saul, he was proud, lifted up; when Paul, humble, small. That is why we say, "I will see you paulo post", that is, after a little while. Hear that he was made small: "For I am the least of the apostles"; and, "To me, the least of all the saints", he says in another place. So he was among the apostles like the fringe of a garment: but the Church of the Gentiles touched it like the woman suffering from a flow of blood, and was healed.

So, brothers, I would say this, I do say this, and if I could I would not keep silent about it: let these works be in you now, those works now, according to the time, according to the hours, according to the days. Are we always to speak? Always to be silent? Always to refresh the body? Always to fast? Always to give bread to the needy? Always to clothe the naked? Always to visit the sick? Always to reconcile those at odds? Always to bury the dead? Now this, now that. These things begin and cease; but that emperor within neither begins nor ought to cease. Let love within not be interrupted; let the duties of love be shown according to the time. So, as it is written, let brotherly love continue.

But perhaps it has troubled some of you, since we have been expounding this Epistle of blessed John to you, why he commended above all only brotherly love. "He who loves his brother," he says; and, "The commandment has been given us that we love one another." He has named brotherly love continually; but the love of God, that is, the love with which we ought to love God, he has not named so continually; yet he has not been altogether silent about it. But about love of the enemy he has been silent almost throughout the whole Epistle. Though he preaches and commends love to us vehemently, he does not tell us to love our enemies, but tells us to love the brothers. But just now, when the Gospel was read, we heard, "For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do this?" Why is it, then, that the apostle John commends brotherly love to us as something great, for a kind of perfection, while the Lord says that it is not enough for us to love the brothers, but that we ought to extend that love so as to reach our enemies? Whoever reaches as far as his enemies does not skip over the brothers. It must, like fire, first take hold of what is nearest, and so spread itself to what is further off. Your brother is nearer to you than any man at all. Again, the man you did not know, but who is not against you, is closer to you than an enemy who is even against you. Extend your love to those near you, and do not call that extending. For you are almost loving yourself when you love those who are close to you. Extend it to strangers who have done you no harm. Go beyond them too; arrive at loving your enemies. This the Lord certainly commands. Why has this man been silent about love of the enemy?

All love, even what is called carnal, which is usually called not love (dilectio) but rather desire (amor), since the name dilectio is more usually used of better things and taken in a better sense: yet all love, dearest brothers, certainly has a certain goodwill toward those who are loved. For we ought not to love men in such a way, or cannot love them in such a way, or be fond of them (for the Lord too used this word when he said, "Peter, are you fond of me?"), as we hear gluttons say, "I am fond of thrushes." You ask why? To kill and eat them. He says he is fond of them, and he is fond of them so that they may not be; he is fond of them in order to destroy them. And whatever we are fond of for food, we are fond of it for this, that it may be consumed and we refreshed. Are men to be loved like this, as things to be consumed? But there is a certain friendship of goodwill, so that we sometimes do good to those we love. What if there is nothing we can do for them? Goodwill alone is enough for one who loves. For we ought not to wish men to be wretched so that we may exercise works of mercy. You give bread to the hungry; but it would be better that no one were hungry, and you gave to no one. You clothe the naked: would that all were clothed and there were no such need! You bury the dead: would that that life might come at last where no one dies! You reconcile those who quarrel: would that the eternal peace of Jerusalem might come at last, where no one is at odds! For all these are services of necessity. Take away the wretched, and works of mercy will cease. Works of mercy will cease: will the ardour of love be extinguished? You love more genuinely a happy man for whom you have nothing to do; that love will be purer and much more sincere. For if you have done good to a wretched man, perhaps you desire to exalt yourself over him and want him, who is the occasion of your kindness, to be subject to you. He was in need, you gave; you seem greater, as it were, because you gave, than he to whom it was given. Wish him your equal, so that you may both be under the one to whom nothing can be given.

For in this the proud soul went beyond measure, and in a way was greedy; for "the root of all evils is greed." And again it is said, "The beginning of all sin is pride." And we sometimes ask how these two sayings agree with each other: "The root of all evils is greed", and, "The beginning of all sin is pride." If the beginning of all sin is pride, the root of all evils is pride. Certainly the root of all evils is greed: we find that there is greed in pride too; for man went beyond measure. What is it to be greedy? To go further than is enough. Adam fell by pride: "The beginning of all sin is pride," it says. Was it not greed? Who was greedier than he, for whom God could not be enough? So, brothers, we read how man was made in the image and likeness of God; and what did God say of him? "And let him have power over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and all the cattle that creep on the earth." Did he say, "Let him have power over men"? "Let him have power," he said: he gave a natural power. Over what is he to have power? "Over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all creeping things that creep on the earth." Why is this man's natural power over these things? Because man has power from that by which he was made in the image of God. And where was he made in the image of God? In the understanding, in the mind, in the inner man; in that he understands the truth, judges between justice and injustice, knows by whom he was made, can understand his creator, praise his creator. He has this understanding who has prudence. Therefore, when many by evil desires were wearing away the image of God in themselves, and, as it were, extinguishing the very flame of understanding by perversity of conduct, Scripture cried out to them: "Do not become like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding." That is to say: I set you above the horse and the mule; I made you in my image; I gave you power over these. Why? Because wild beasts do not have a rational mind; but you grasp the truth with a rational mind; you understand what is above you: submit to him who is above you, and those things over which you are set will be below you. But because by sin man deserted him under whom he ought to have been, he is made subject to those above which he ought to have been.

Attend to what I say: God, man, beasts. For example, above you is God; below you are the beasts. Acknowledge him who is above you, so that what is below you may acknowledge you. And so, when Daniel acknowledged God above himself, the lions acknowledged him above themselves. But if you do not acknowledge him who is above you, you despise the higher and are made subject to the lower. That is why the pride of the Egyptians: how was it tamed? By frogs and flies. God could have sent lions too, but a great man must be terrified by a lion. The prouder they were, the more their wicked neck was broken by contemptible and lowly things. But the lions acknowledged Daniel, because he was subject to God. What? The martyrs who fought with beasts and were torn by the bites of wild animals, were they not under God? Or were the three men servants of God, and the Maccabees not servants of God? Did the fire acknowledge the three men as servants of God, not burning them nor even harming their clothes, and not acknowledge the Maccabees? It acknowledged the Maccabees; it acknowledged them too, brothers. But there was need of a certain scourge, by permission of the Lord, who said in Scripture, "He scourges every son whom he receives." For do you think, brothers, that iron would have pierced the Lord's inward parts unless he himself permitted it, or that he would have hung on the wood unless he had willed it? Did his creation not acknowledge him? Or did he set an example of patience before his faithful? So God delivered some visibly, and did not deliver some visibly; yet he delivered all spiritually, and spiritually he forsook no one. Visibly he seemed to forsake some, and seemed to rescue some. He rescued some for this, lest you should think he could not rescue. He gave testimony that he can, so that where he does not do it you may understand a more hidden will, and not suspect a difficulty. But what, brothers? When we have escaped all these snares of mortality, when the times of temptation have passed, when the river of this age has run its course and we have received again that first robe, that immortality which we lost by sinning, when "this corruptible has put on incorruption", that is, when this flesh has put on incorruption, "and this mortal has put on immortality", then every creature will acknowledge the children of God made perfect, where there is no need to be tempted or scourged: all things will be subject to us, if here we are subject to God.

So a Christian ought to be such that he does not glory over other men. For God has granted you to be above the beasts, that is, to be better than the beasts. This you have by nature; you will always be better than a beast. If you want to be better than another man, you will envy him when you see him your equal. You ought to want all men to be equal to you; and if you have surpassed someone in prudence, you ought to wish that he too may be prudent. As long as he is slow, he learns from you; as long as he is untaught, he needs you; and you seem to be the teacher, he the learner: so you are superior, because you are the teacher; he inferior, because he is the learner. Unless you wish him to be your equal, you want always to have a learner. But if you want always to have a learner, you will be an envious teacher. If an envious teacher, how will you be a teacher? I beg you, do not teach him your envy. Hear the apostle speaking from the heart of love: "I would that all men were as I myself am." How did he want all to be equal? He was superior to all for this reason, that in love he wished all to be equal. So man went beyond measure; he wanted to be greedier, so as to be above men, he who was made above the beasts: and that is pride.

And see what great works pride does; take to heart how like, and almost equal, to love the things it does. Love feeds the hungry, pride feeds them too: love so that God may be praised, pride so that itself may be praised. Love clothes the naked, pride clothes them too; love fasts, pride fasts too; love buries the dead, pride buries them too. All the good works which love wants to do and does, pride drives on in opposition, and leads its horses, as it were. But love is more inward: it takes away the place of badly driven pride; not of pride driving badly, but of pride badly driven. Woe to the man whose charioteer is pride, for he must go headlong. But who knows that it is not pride that drives good deeds? Who sees it? Where is this? We see the works: mercy feeds, pride feeds too; mercy receives a guest, pride receives a guest too; mercy intercedes for a poor man, pride intercedes too. What is this? In the works we do not discern it. I dare to say something, but not I; Paul said it: love dies, that is, a man who has love confesses the name of Christ and undergoes martyrdom; pride confesses too, and undergoes martyrdom too. The one has love, the other does not have love. But let him who does not have love hear from the apostle: "If I distribute all I have to the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." So divine Scripture calls us back within, away from the boasting of this outward face; and from this surface which is flaunted before men it calls us back within. Return to your conscience; question it. Do not attend to what blooms outside, but to what the root is in the ground. Is desire rooted there? There can be the appearance of good deeds; they cannot truly be good works. Is love rooted there? Be secure: nothing evil can come forth. The proud man caresses, love is fierce. The one clothes, the other beats. For the one clothes in order to please men; the other beats in order to correct by discipline. The blow of love is more acceptable than the alms of pride. Return within, then, brothers; and in all that you do, look to God as your witness. See, since he sees, with what mind you act. If your heart does not accuse you of doing it for the sake of boasting, good; be secure. But do not fear, when you do well, that another may see. Fear doing it for this, that you may be praised: for let another see, so that God may be praised. For if you hide it from the eyes of men, you hide it from men's imitation; you take praise away from God. There are two to whom you give alms; two are hungry, one for bread, the other for righteousness. Between these two hungry men (since it is said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied"), between these two hungry men you have been set as a good worker. If love works through you, it has pity on both, it wants to help both. For the one seeks something to eat, the other seeks something to imitate. You feed the one, offer yourself to the other; you have given alms to both: you have made the one give thanks for his hunger destroyed; you have made the other an imitator through the example set before him.

Have pity, then, as merciful men; because even in loving your enemies you love brothers. Do not think that John gave no command about love of the enemy, since he was not silent about brotherly love: you love brothers. "How," you say, "do we love brothers?" I ask why you love your enemy: why do you love him? That he may be healthy in this life? What if it is not good for him? That he may be rich? What if he will be blinded by those very riches? That he may marry? What if he will suffer a bitter life from it? That he may have children? What if they will be wicked? So these things are uncertain which you seem to wish your enemy because you love him; they are uncertain. Wish him to have eternal life with you; wish him to be your brother. If, then, in loving your enemy you wish this, that he may be your brother, when you love him you love a brother. For you do not love in him what he is, but what you want him to be. I once said to your Love, unless I am mistaken: a block of timber is set before the eyes; a very good craftsman sees the wood, not yet shaped, cut from the forest; he has taken a liking to it: he wants to make something from it. For he has not taken a liking to it so that it may always remain as it is. In his art he has seen what is to be, not in his liking what it is; and he has loved what he is going to make from it, not what it is. So God too has loved us sinners. We say that God has loved sinners; for he says, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." Did he love sinners so that we might remain sinners? He saw us, as a craftsman sees wood from the forest, and he thought of the building he was going to make from it, not the forest it was. So you too look at your enemy opposing you, raging, biting with words, provoking with insults, pursuing with hatred: you attend there to the fact that he is a man. You see all these hostile things done by a man; and you see in him that he was made by God. That he was made a man, he was made by God; that he hates you, he himself did; that he envies, he himself did. And what do you say in your mind? "Lord, be merciful to him, forgive him his sins; strike terror into him, change him." You do not love in him what he is, but what you want him to be. So when you love your enemy, you love a brother. Therefore perfect love is love of the enemy: and this perfect love is in brotherly love. And let no one say that the apostle John admonished us to something less and the Lord Christ admonished us to more: John admonished us to love the brothers; Christ admonished us to love even our enemies. Attend to why Christ admonished you to love your enemies. Was it that they should always remain enemies? If he admonished you to this, that they should remain enemies, you hate, you do not love. Attend to how he himself loved, that is, because he did not want them to remain persecutors: he said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." Those whom he wanted forgiven, he wanted changed; those whom he wanted changed, he deigned to make brothers out of enemies, and truly he did so. He was killed, buried, rose again, ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit to the disciples; they began to preach his name with confidence, they did miracles in the name of the crucified and slain one: those killers of the Lord saw them; and those who shed his blood in their rage drank it in believing.

I have said these things, brothers, and at some length; yet since love itself had to be commended to your Love more forcefully, it had to be commended in this way. For if there is no love in you, we have said nothing. But if it is in you, we have, as it were, added oil to the flames; and in one in whom it was not, perhaps it has been kindled by words. In one, what was there has grown; in another, what was not there has begun to be. We have said these things, then, for this purpose, that you may not be slow to love your enemies. Does a man rage against you? He rages; you pray. He hates; you have pity. It is the fever of his soul that hates you: he will be healed, and will thank you. How do doctors love the sick? Do they love them as sick? If they love the sick as sick, they want them always to be sick. They love the sick for this, not that they may remain sick, but that from sick they may become healthy. And how much do they often suffer from the delirious? What insults in words? They are often even struck. The doctor pursues the fever and pardons the man. And what shall I say, brothers? Does he love his enemy? Rather he hates his enemy, the disease; for he hates it, and loves the man by whom he is struck: he hates the fever. For by what is he struck? By the disease, by the sickness, by the fever. He takes away what is against him, so that what he may rejoice over may remain. So you too: if your enemy hates you, and hates you unjustly, know that the desire of the world reigns in him; that is why he hates you. If you too hate him, you return evil for evil. What does returning evil for evil do? I was weeping for one sick man, who hated you; now I mourn two, if you hate too. But he attacks your property; he takes from you some things or other that you have on earth: that is why you hate him, because he causes you straits on earth. Do not suffer straits; move up to heaven: there you will have your heart where there is breadth, so that you may suffer no straits in the hope of eternal life. Consider what he takes from you: he would not take even these from you, unless he permitted it who "scourges every son whom he receives." In a way, your enemy himself is God's instrument by which you are healed. If God knows that it is good for you to be stripped, he permits him; if he knows that it is good for you to be beaten, he permits him, so that you may be beaten. He cures you by him; wish that he may be healed.

"No one has ever seen God." See, dearly beloved: "If we love one another, God will abide in us, and his love will be perfected in us." Begin to love, and you will be perfected. Have you begun to love? God has begun to dwell in you; love him who has begun to dwell in you, so that by dwelling in you more perfectly he may make you perfect. "By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit." Good; thanks be to God. We know that he dwells in us. And how do we know this very thing, that we know that he dwells in us? Because John himself said it: "Because he has given us of his Spirit." How do we know that he has given us of his Spirit? This very thing, that he has given you of his Spirit, how do you know it? Question your heart: if it is full of love, you have the Spirit of God. How do we know that it is from this that you know that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Question the apostle Paul: "Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

"And we have seen and bear witness that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world." Be secure, you who are sick: such a physician has come, and do you despair? The diseases were great, the wounds incurable, the sickness desperate. Do you attend to the greatness of your ill, and not attend to the almightiness of the physician? You are desperate; but he is almighty: his witnesses are these who were healed first and announce the physician; and yet even they were healed more in hope than in reality. For so the apostle says: "For we have been saved in hope." So we have begun to be healed in faith; but our salvation will be perfected when "this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality." This is hope, not yet reality. But whoever rejoices in hope will hold the reality; whoever has no hope will not be able to come to the reality.

"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." Let us not now say it at length: whoever confesses, not in word but in deed, not with the tongue but with his life. For many confess in words but deny in deeds. "And we have known and believed the love which God has for us." And again, how did you know it? "God is love." He said it above; see, he says it again. Love could not be commended to you more than by being called God. Perhaps you were going to despise the gift of God. Do you despise God too? "God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." They dwell in each other, the one who contains and the one who is contained. You dwell in God, but so as to be contained; God dwells in you, but so as to contain you, lest you fall. Do not think that you become God's house in the way that your house holds up your flesh: if the house in which you are withdraws itself, you fall; but if you withdraw yourself, God does not fall. He is whole when you desert him; whole when you return to him. You are healed; you will give him nothing. You are cleansed, you are refreshed, you are corrected. He is medicine to the unhealthy, a rule to the crooked, light to the darkened, a dwelling to the deserted. So everything is conferred on you. See that you do not think that anything is conferred on God when you come to him, not even a slave. Will God, then, have no servants if you are unwilling, and if all are unwilling? God does not need servants, but servants need God; therefore the Psalm says, "I said to the Lord, You are my God." He is the true Lord. And what does it say? "For you have no need of my goods." You need the good of your servant. Your servant needs your good, that you may feed him; you too need the good of your servant, that he may help you. You cannot draw water for yourself, you cannot cook for yourself, you cannot run before your horse, you cannot look after your beast. You see that you need the good of your servant; you need his service. So you are not a true lord, when you need an inferior. He is the true Lord who seeks nothing from us; and woe to us if we do not seek him. He seeks nothing from us; and he sought us when we were not seeking him. One sheep had strayed; he found it, and, rejoicing, carried it back on his shoulders. And was the sheep necessary to the shepherd, and not rather the shepherd necessary to the sheep? The more gladly I speak of love, the less I want this Epistle to end. None is more ardent in commending love. Nothing sweeter is preached to you, nothing more wholesome is drunk; but only if by living well you strengthen in yourselves the gift of God. Do not be ungrateful for so great a grace of him who, though he had an only Son, did not want him to be alone; but so that he might have brothers, adopted for him those who would possess eternal life with him.