Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 4.9–4.14

defense then do you have, what plausible excuse will you be able to put forward, when you make a lion a man, but look on while you yourself become a lion from a man? when you bestow on it things beyond nature, but do not even keep for yourself the things according to nature? when you strive to bring the wild beasts up to our nobility, but throw yourself down from the throne of the kingdom and drive yourself into their madness? Consider anger, if you will, to be a beast, and show as much zeal about yourself as others show about lions, and make such a temper tame and gentle. For it too has cruel teeth and claws, and if you do not tame it, it will destroy everything. For neither lion nor viper can tear the entrails as anger does, continually doing this with iron claws. For it not only ruins the body but also destroys the very health of the soul, devouring, tearing, and lacerating all its power, and making it useless for everything. For if one who breeds worms in his bowels cannot even breathe, since everything within him is being consumed, how shall we, who have so great a serpent devouring everything within, I mean anger, be able to bring forth anything noble? How then shall we be freed from this ruin? If we drink a draught that can kill the worms and serpents within. “And what draught,” someone says, “has this power?” The precious blood of Christ, if it is received with confidence (for this will be able to quench every disease), and along with it the careful hearing of the divine Scriptures, and almsgiving added to the hearing; for through all these the passions that ruin our soul can be put to death. And then only shall we live; for now at least we are in no better state than the dead; since it is not possible for us to live while they live, but we must perish. And unless we first kill them here, they will certainly kill us there; or rather, even before that death they will exact the utmost penalty from us here as well. For each of such passions is cruel and tyrannical and insatiable, and devouring us every day, it never stops. “For their teeth are the teeth of a lion,” or rather much worse. For the lion, as soon as it is full, leaves the body that has fallen in its way; but these passions are neither filled nor leave off until they set the man they have captured near the devil. For their power is so great that the slavery which Paul showed toward Christ, despising both hell and the kingdom for his sake, they demand the same from those they have captured. For if anyone falls into love of bodies, or of money, or of glory, he then laughs at hell and despises the kingdom so as to do their will. Let us not, then, disbelieve Paul when he says that he loved Christ so. For when some are found serving their passions so, how will that seem incredible any longer? For this is why longing for Christ is weaker, because all our strength is spent on this love; and we seize, we grasp for more, we serve vainglory, than which what could be meaner? For even if you become ten thousand times renowned, you will be no better than the dishonored, but for this very reason even more dishonored. For when those who wish to glorify you and show you illustrious laugh at you for this very thing, that you desire glory from them, how will the results of such zeal not be turned against you,

since the thing belongs to what is blamed? For just as, if someone praises and flatters one who desires to commit adultery or fornication, he becomes rather the accuser than the praiser of the one who desires such things, so too with one who desires glory: when we all praise him, we are rather the accusers than the praisers of those who wish to be glorified. Why then do you pursue the thing, from which the opposite usually happens to you? For if you wish to be glorified, despise glory, and you will be more illustrious than all. Why do you suffer what Nebuchadnezzar suffered? For he too set up an image, thinking to provide himself with an addition of praise from the wood and the senseless form, and the living man wished to appear more illustrious through the lifeless. Do you see the excess of madness? Thinking to honor himself, he rather insulted himself. For when he is seen to trust the soulless thing more than himself and the living soul in him, and for this reason brings the wood to such preeminence, how would he not deserve laughter, hastening to adorn himself not from his character but from planks? It is as if someone should think to pride himself on the pavement of his house and its fine staircase, rather than on being a man. Many among us now imitate him. For as he took glory from the image, so others from clothes, others from a house, others from mules and carriages, and from the columns in their houses they expect to be admired. For since they have lost being men, they go about gathering for themselves from elsewhere a glory full of much ridicule.

But the noble and great servants of God did not shine from these things, but from those from which they above all ought to shine. For though captives and slaves, young and strangers, and bereft of everything at home, they then appeared far more majestic than the one clothed with all these things. And for Nebuchadnezzar neither so great an image, nor satraps, nor generals, nor countless armies, nor a mass of gold, nor any other display sufficed for his desire to show himself great; but for these men, stripped of all these, philosophy alone sufficed, and it showed those who possessed none of these things more illustrious than the one who had the diadem and the purple and was clothed with such things, as much as the sun is brighter than a pearl. For they were led into the midst of the whole world, being young and captives and slaves, and as soon as they appeared the king breathed fire from his eyes; and generals, governors, and local rulers, and the whole theater of the devil stood around; and the sound of pipes and trumpets and every kind of music, borne from every side to heaven, rang in their ears; and the furnace was kindled to an immense height, and its flame touched the very clouds, and all was full of fear and terror. But none of these things terrified them; but laughing at them as at children playing, they showed their courage and their gentleness, and uttering a voice brighter than those trumpets, they said: “Be it known to you, O king.” For they did not wish to insult the tyrant even by a word, but only to show their godliness. That is why they did not stretch out long speeches, but showed everything briefly: “For there is a God in heaven,” it says, “able to deliver us.” Why do you show me the multitude? Why the furnace? Why the sharpened swords? Why the fearful guards? Our Master is higher and mightier than all these. Then, considering that it might happen that God would will to allow them to be burned, so that if this happened they might not seem to have spoken falsely, they add this too, saying, “But if not, be it known to you that we do not serve your gods.”

For if they had said that it was for their sins that he does not deliver them, and he had not delivered them, they would not have been believed. That is why here they keep silent about this; but they say it in the furnace, putting forward their sins again and again. But before the king they say nothing of the kind, but only that even if they are about to be burned, they will not betray their godliness. For they did what they did not for rewards and recompense, but from love alone; and that although they were in captivity and slavery and had enjoyed nothing good. For they had lost country and freedom and all they had. And do not tell me of the honors in the royal courts. For being holy and righteous, they would have chosen ten thousand times to beg at home and enjoy the good things in the temple. “For I have chosen,” it says, “to be cast aside in the house of God rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners,” and, “Better is one day in your courts than thousands.” They would have chosen ten thousand times to be cast aside at home rather than to reign in Babylon. And this is clear from what they show even in the furnace, weighed down by their stay there. For though they themselves enjoyed much honor, seeing the misfortunes of the others they were bitterly stung; which is above all the mark of the saints, to prefer neither glory, nor honor, nor anything else to the salvation of their neighbor. See, at any rate, how while in the furnace they made supplication for the whole people. But we, even in ease, do not remember our brothers. And when they sought the dreams, they did not look to their own interest but to that of the many; for that they despised death they showed through many things afterward. And everywhere they throw themselves forward, wishing to move God. Then, since they did not think even themselves sufficient, they take refuge in the fathers; and they said that they themselves brought nothing more than a broken spirit.

Let us too emulate them. For now too a golden image stands, the tyranny of mammon. But let us not attend to the drums, nor the pipes, nor the harps, nor the rest of the pageant of wealth; but even if we must fall into the furnace of poverty, let us choose it, rather than worship that image, and there will be a dew whistling in the midst. Let us not, then, shudder on hearing of the furnace of poverty. For then too those who fell into the furnace were shown more illustrious, while those who worshiped were destroyed. But then everything happened together; now some things will be here, others there, and others both here and on the day to come. For those who have chosen poverty rather than worship mammon will be more illustrious both here and then; but those who are rich here unjustly will then pay the utmost penalty. From this furnace Lazarus too came out, no less illustrious than those children; but the rich man, in the rank of those who worshiped the image, was condemned in hell. For what was said is a type of those things. As, then, here those who fell in suffered nothing, while those sitting outside were seized with great violence, so it will be then: the saints, passing through the river of fire, will suffer nothing unpleasant, but will even appear radiant; but those who worshiped the image will see the fire leaping upon them more fiercely than any beast and dragging them inside. So if anyone disbelieves in hell, seeing this furnace, let him believe what is to come from what is present, and let him not fear the furnace of poverty, but the furnace of sin. For this is flame and pain, but that is dew and refreshment; and by that furnace stands the devil, but by this angels, shaking off the flame.

Let the rich hear this, who kindle the furnace of poverty. For they will do no harm to those men, since the dew comes to them; but they will make themselves easy prey to the flame that they kindled with their own hands. Then, an angel came down with those children; now let us go down with those who are in the furnace of poverty, and by almsgiving make dew and shake off the flame, so that we may become sharers in their crowns too; so that the voice of Christ may scatter the flame of hell for us, saying: “You saw me hungry and fed me.” For that voice will then stand by us in place of dew, whistling through the midst of the flame. Let us go down, then, with almsgiving into the furnace of poverty. Let us see those who live in philosophy walking in it and treading on the coals; let us see the new and marvelous wonder, a man singing psalms in a furnace, a man giving thanks in the fire, bound to the utmost poverty and offering great praise to Christ. For those who bear poverty with thanksgiving become equal to those children. For poverty is more fearful than fire and burns more fiercely. But it did not burn those children; but when they confessed their thanks to the Master, their bonds too were at once loosed. So too now: if, having fallen into poverty, you give thanks, both the bonds are loosed and the flame is quenched; and even if it is not quenched, what is much more wonderful, instead of a flame it becomes a spring; which is what happened then too, and in the midst of the furnace they enjoyed pure dew. For it did not quench the fire, but prevented those cast in from being burned. This one can see also with those who live in philosophy; for in poverty they are more fearless than the rich. Let us not, then, sit outside the furnace, being pitiless toward the poor, lest we suffer what those men suffered then. For if you go down to them and stand with the children, the fire will no longer do you any harm; but if you sit above and overlook them in the flame of poverty, the flame will burn you up. Go down, then, into the fire, that you may not be burned up by the fire; do not sit outside the fire, lest the flame seize you. For if it sees you with the poor, it will depart from you; but if it sees you estranged from them, it will quickly run upon you and seize you. Do not, then, stand apart from them when they are cast in; but when the devil orders those who did not worship gold to be cast into the furnace of poverty, be not among those who cast in but among those who are cast in, that you may be among those who are saved and not among those who are burned. For the greatest dew is not to be held by desire for wealth, and to keep company with the poor. These are richer than all, who have trampled on the desire for wealth. For those men too, despising the king then, became more illustrious than the king. And you too, if you look down on the things in the world, will be more precious than the whole world, like those saints, “of whom the world was not worthy.” That you may become worthy of heavenly things, then, laugh at present things. For so you will be more illustrious here too, and will enjoy the good things to come, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might to the ages of ages. Amen.