Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 44.1–44.5

“While he was still speaking to the crowds, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, seeking to speak to him. And someone said to him, ‘Behold, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak to you.’ But he answered and said to the one who told him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Behold my mother and my brothers.’” What I said the other day, that when virtue is absent all things are superfluous, this is shown now too with great abundance. For I said that age and nature and dwelling in the desert and all such things are useless when the mind is not good; but today we learn something more besides, that not even to have carried Christ in the womb and to have given birth by that wonderful birth brings any gain when virtue is not present. And this is especially clear from here. “For while he was still speaking to the crowds,” it says, “someone said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers are seeking you.’ But he says, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’” And he said these things not being ashamed of his mother, nor denying her who bore him (for if he were ashamed, he would not have passed through that womb), but showing that there is no profit to her in this unless she does all that she ought. For what she attempted was of excessive love of honor; for she wished to show the people that she has power and authority over her son, as yet imagining nothing great about him; therefore she also came at an unseasonable time. See at any rate the folly both of her and of them. For when they ought to have gone in and listened with the crowd, or, if they did not wish this, to have waited for him to end his discourse and then to approach, they call him outside, and do this before all, displaying excessive love of honor, and wishing to show that they give him orders with great authority. Which the evangelist too shows, finding fault; for hinting at this very thing he said, “while he was still speaking to the crowds,” as if he said, “Was there no other time? Was it not possible to speak with him privately?” And what did they wish to say? For if it was about the doctrines of the truth, they ought to have set these forth in common and said them before all, so that the others too might gain; but if about other matters that concerned themselves, they ought not to have pressed him so. For if he did not allow one to bury his father, so that the following might not be interrupted, much less ought he to have broken off his public discourse for things that did not concern it at all. From which it is clear that they did this only from vainglory; which John too showed when he said that “not even his brothers believed in him”; and he reports their words too, full of great folly, saying that they were dragging him to Jerusalem for no other reason than that they might reap glory from his signs: “For if you do these things,” they say, “show yourself to the world; for no one does anything in secret and himself seeks to be known openly”; when he too rebuked them, blaming their fleshly mind. For since the Jews reproached him and said, “Is not this the carpenter’s son, whose father and mother we know? And are not his brothers with us?”, they, wishing to beat off the meanness of his family, were calling him to a display of signs. For this reason he repels them, wishing to heal their passion; since if he had wished to deny his mother, he would have denied her then, when those men reproached him. But now he is seen taking such forethought for her as, at the very cross, to entrust her to the disciple he loved most of all, and to give many charges concerning her. But he does not do this now, caring for her and for his brothers. For since they regarded him as a mere man and were vainglorious, he casts out the disease, not insulting but correcting. But do not examine only the words, which contain a measured rebuke, but also the absurdity and the daring that his brothers dared, and who the one rebuking was, that he was not a mere man but the only-begotten Son of God, and with what purpose he rebuked them; for it was not wishing to put them to confusion, but to free them from a most tyrannical passion, and to lead them little by little to the fitting notion about him, and to persuade her that he is not only her son but also her Master. And you will see that the rebuke was very fitting for him and profitable for her, and besides this full of gentleness. For he did not say, “Go, tell my mother that she is not my mother,” but he directs his answer to the one who spoke, saying, “Who is my mother?”, establishing with what has been said another point too. What is this? That neither they nor others, trusting in kinship, should neglect virtue. For if it profits her nothing to be his mother unless that other thing were present, hardly would anyone else be saved by kinship. For there is one nobility only, to do the will of God. This manner of nobility is better and more sovereign than that.

Knowing these things, then, let us neither pride ourselves on children of good repute, unless we have their virtue, nor on noble fathers, unless we are like them in character. For it is possible for one who begot not to be a father, and for one who did not beget to be one. For this reason elsewhere too, when a woman said, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked,” he did not say, “No womb bore me, nor did I suck breasts,” but this: “Rather, blessed are those who do the will of my Father.” Do you see how up and down he does not deny the natural kinship, but adds that of virtue? And the Forerunner too, saying, “Brood of vipers, do not presume to say, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’” does not show that they were not from Abraham by nature, but that it profits them nothing to be from Abraham unless they have the kinship that comes from character; which Christ too showed when he said, “If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham,” not depriving them of the kinship according to the flesh, but teaching them to seek the one greater and more sovereign than it. This he establishes here too, but less offensively and more tactfully; for his word concerned his mother. For he did not say, “She is not my mother, nor are those my brothers, since they do not do my will”; he did not declare and condemn, but still left them masters of their own choice, speaking with his fitting gentleness. “For whoever does the will of my Father,” he says, “he is my brother and sister and mother.” So if they wish to be so, let them come by this road. And when the woman cried out, saying, “Blessed is the womb that bore you,” he did not say, “She is not my mother,” but, “If she wishes to be blessed, let her do the will of my Father.” For such a one is both brother and sister and mother. O the honor! O the virtue! To what a summit it leads the one who pursues it! How many women have called that holy virgin and her womb blessed, and prayed to become such mothers, and to give up everything! What then is the hindrance? For behold, he has cut a broad road for us, and it is possible not for women only but for men too to come into such a rank, or rather into one still much greater. For this makes a mother far more than those birth pangs. So if that is to be called blessed, much more this, inasmuch as it is more sovereign. Do not then simply desire it, but walk with great zeal the road that leads you to what you desire. Having said these things, then, he went out of the house. Do you see how he both rebuked them and did what they longed for? Which he does at the wedding too. For there too he both rebuked her when she asked unseasonably, and nevertheless did not refuse; by the first correcting her weakness, by the second showing his goodwill toward his mother. So here too he both healed the disease of vainglory and rendered the fitting honor to his mother, though she asked unseasonably. “For on that day,” it says, “Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.” “For if you wish,” he says, “to see and to hear, behold, I go out and converse.” For since he had done many signs, he again bestows the benefit of teaching. And he sits beside the sea, fishing and netting those on the land. And it was not without purpose that he sat beside the sea; and the evangelist set down this very thing as a hint. For to show that he did this wishing to assemble the audience with exactness, and so as to leave no one behind his back but to have all face to face, “And great crowds,” it says, “were gathered to him, so that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood on the shore.” And having sat down there, he speaks in parables. “And he spoke to them,” it says, “many things in parables.” And yet on the mountain he did not do so, nor did he weave his discourse with so many parables; for then there were only crowds and an unaffected people, but here there were scribes and Pharisees too. But consider, I pray you, which parable he speaks first, and how Matthew sets them down in order. Which then does he speak first? The one he most needed to speak first, the one that makes the hearer more attentive. For since he was going to speak in riddles, he first rouses the mind of the hearers by the parable. For this reason another evangelist too says that he rebuked them because they did not understand, saying, “How did you not know the parable?” And he speaks in parables not for this reason only, but also to make his word more vivid, and to implant a fuller memory of it, and to bring the things before their eyes. So the prophets too do.

What then is the parable? “Behold, the sower went out to sow,” he says. From where did he go out, who is present everywhere, who fills all things? Or how did he go out? Not in place, but in relation and in his dispensation toward us, having come nearer to us through the clothing of the flesh. For since we could not enter, our sins walling off the entrance from us, he himself comes out to us. And why did he come out? To destroy the land full of thorns? To punish the husbandmen? By no means; but to till it and care for it, and to sow the word of godliness. For by the seed he here means the teaching, and by the field the souls of men, and by the sower himself. What then comes of this seed? Three parts perish, and one is saved. “And as he sowed,” it says, “some fell beside the road, and the birds came and devoured them.” He did not say that he cast them there, but that they fell. “And others on the rock, where they had not much earth; and at once they sprang up, because they had no depth of earth; and when the sun rose they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered. And others among the thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked them. And others on the good ground, and it yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” A fourth part was saved; and not even this equally, but here too the difference is great. And he said these things showing that he spoke to all ungrudgingly. For as the sower does not distinguish the field that lies before him, but simply and without discrimination casts the seeds, so he too does not distinguish rich, poor, wise, unwise, careless, earnest, brave, cowardly, but spoke to all, fulfilling his own part, though he foreknew what would be, so that it might be possible for him to say, “What ought I to have done, and have not done?” And the prophets speak of the people as of a vine: “For the beloved had a vineyard,” it says; and, “You brought a vine out of Egypt”; but he as of seed. Showing what? That the obedience will now be swift and easier, and will at once yield its fruit. And when you hear, “The sower went out to sow,” do not think it a tautology. For the sower often goes out for another task too, either to plough, or to cut out the bad weeds, or to pull up thorns, or to care for some other such thing; but he went out to sow. From where then, tell me, did the greater part of the seed perish? Not from the one who sowed, but from the earth that received it, that is, from the soul that did not listen. And why does he not say that the careless received some and lost it, the rich some and choked it, the slack some and betrayed it? He does not wish to touch them too sharply, so as not to throw them into despair, but leaves the conviction to the conscience of the hearers. And not the seed only suffered this, but the net too; for it also brought up many useless things. And he speaks this parable anointing the disciples and teaching them, even if those who perish are more than those who receive the word, not to fall down. For this happened in the case of the Master too; and he who surely foreknew that these things would be did not desist from sowing. “And how would it have reason,” someone says, “to sow on the thorns, on the rock, on the road?” In the case of seeds and earth it would not have reason; but in the case of souls and teachings this even has great praise. For the husbandman would reasonably be blamed for doing this; for it is not possible for the rock to become earth, nor for the road not to be a road, nor the thorns not to be thorns; but with rational beings it is not so. For it is possible for the rock to be changed and to become rich soil, and for the road no longer to be trampled nor to lie open to all who pass by, but to be a fertile field, and for the thorns to be done away and the seeds to enjoy much security. For if it were not possible, he would not have sown. And if the change did not take place in all, it was not because of the sower, but because of those unwilling to be changed. For he did his own part; and if they betrayed what came from him, he is blameless who displayed such love for humanity. But consider this, I pray you, that the way of destruction is not one, but various and differing from one another. For those like the road are the coarse and careless and negligent; while those on the rock are only the weaker. “For he who was sown on the rocky places,” he says, “this is he who hears the word and at once receives it with joy; but he has no root in himself, but endures for a while; and when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, at once he is offended.” “When anyone,” he says, “hears the word of the truth and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who was sown beside the road.” But it is not equal for the teaching to wither when no one attacks it or tries to pry it loose, and when temptations press upon it. And those who are like the thorns are far less pardonable than these.

So that we may not suffer any of these things, then, let us cover what is said with eagerness and with continual remembrance. For even if the devil snatches, it is in our power not to be robbed; even if the seeds wither, this happens not because of the heat (for he did not say that it withered because of the heat, but because it had no root); even if what is said is choked, it is not because of the thorns, but because of those who allow them to grow up. For it is possible, if you are willing, to check this evil growth, and to use wealth as one ought. For this reason he did not say “the world,” but “the care of the world”; nor “wealth,” but “the deceitfulness of wealth.” Let us not then blame the things, but the corrupted mind. For it is possible both to be rich and not to be deceived, and to be in this world and not to be choked by its cares. For wealth has two opposite defects: the one straining and darkening, care; the other making men softer, luxury. And he said well, “the deceitfulness of wealth.” For all the things of wealth are deceit; for they are names only, not resting on realities. For pleasure, and glory, and adornment, and all these things are a kind of fantasy, not the truth of things. Having then stated the ways of destruction, he afterward sets down the good ground, not allowing them to despair, but giving hope of repentance, and showing that it is possible to change from those mentioned into this. And yet if the ground is good, and the sower one, and the seeds the same, why did one bear a hundredfold, another sixty, another thirty? Here again the difference is from the nature of the ground; for even where the ground is good, the difference in it is great. Do you see that it is not the husbandman who is the cause, nor the seeds, but the ground that receives them, not by nature but by choice? And here too his love for humanity is great, that he does not require one measure of virtue, but receives the first, and does not cast out the second, and gives room to the third. And he says these things so that those following him might not think that hearing is enough for salvation. “And for what reason,” someone says, “did he not set down the other vices too, such as desire for bodies, vainglory?” By saying “the care of this world” and “the deceitfulness of wealth,” he set down all. For vainglory too and the other things belong to this world and to the deceitfulness of wealth, such as pleasure, and gluttony, and envy, and vainglory, and all such things. And he added the road and the rock, showing that it is not enough only to be rid of money, but one must practise the rest of virtue too. For what if you are free of money, but cowardly and soft? And what if you are not cowardly, but careless and negligent about hearing? For one part is not enough for our salvation, but there is need first of exact hearing and continual memory, then of courage, then of contempt of money and freedom from all worldly things. For this reason he sets this first, before that, since there is need of this first (…): “For how will they believe, unless they hear?” So we too, unless we attend to what is said, shall not be able even to learn what we ought to do; then courage, and contempt of present things. Hearing these things, then, let us wall ourselves round on every side, attending to what is said, and sending our roots down deep, and cleansing ourselves of all worldly things. But if we do some things and neglect others, we shall have nothing more; for if not in this way, we perish in that. For what difference does it make if we are destroyed not by wealth but by carelessness, not by carelessness but by cowardice? For the husbandman too, whether he loses his seed in this way or in that, mourns alike. Let us not then take comfort because we are not perishing in all the ways, but let us grieve in whatever way we perish. And let us burn up the thorns; for they choke the word. And the rich know this, who are useful not only not for these things, but not for other things either. For having become slaves and captives of pleasures, they are useless even for civic affairs; and if for those, much more for the things of heaven. For a double ruin comes upon the reasoning from this, both from luxury and from care. For each of these by itself is enough to sink the ship; but when both run together, consider how great the storm becomes.

And do not wonder if he called luxury thorns. For you do not know it, being drunk with the passion; but the healthy know that it pricks more than a thorn, and that luxury consumes the soul more than care, and brings more grievous pains both to the body and to the soul. For no one is so smitten by anxiety as by surfeit. For when sleeplessness, and throbbing of the temples, and heaviness of the head, and pains of the bowels surround such a man, consider how much more grievous these things are than thorns. And as thorns, wherever they are held, make bloody the hands that hold them, so too luxury ruins feet and hands and head and eyes and simply all the members; and it is dry and fruitless, like the thorn, and grieves far more than it, and in the vital parts. For it brings on untimely old age, and blunts the senses, and darkens the reason, and maims the sharp-sighted mind, and makes the body flabby, making the storehouse of dung more abundant and gathering a great heap of evils, and making the burden greater and the load excessive; whence the falls are many and continual, and the shipwrecks frequent. For why do you fatten the body, tell me? Are we going to sacrifice you? Are we going to set you on a table? You do well to fatten birds; or rather, not even those well; for when they are fattened, they are useless for a healthy diet. So great an evil is luxury that it shows its ruin even in irrational creatures. For by pampering them we make them useless both to themselves and to us. For the residues are undigested, and a moister putrefaction comes from that fat. But those not so fed, but living, as one might say, in fasting and on a moderate diet, and toiling and enduring hardship, these are most useful both to themselves and to others, both for food and for all other things. Those at any rate who eat these are healthier; while those who are fed on the others become like them, sluggish and sickly, and make their bond more grievous. For nothing is so hostile and harmful to the body as luxury; nothing so bursts it and buries it and destroys it as prodigality. Therefore one might be most astonished at their folly in this too, that they are not willing to show toward themselves as much sparing as others show toward wineskins. For the wine sellers do not let these take in more than they should, so that they may not burst; but these men do not count their wretched belly worthy even of this forethought, but when they have filled it and burst it, they fill everything up to the ears, up to the nostrils, up to the throat itself, contriving thereby a double constriction for the breath and for the power that governs the living creature. Was your throat made for this, that you might fill it up to the mouth with rotten wine and other corruption? Not for this, O man, but that before all you might sing to God, and send up the sacred prayers, and read the divine laws, and counsel your neighbors what is profitable. But you, as though you had received it for this, do not allow it even a little time to be at leisure for that ministry, but subject it all your life to this evil slavery. And as if someone, taking a lyre with golden strings and well tuned, instead of striking up the all-harmonious melody on it, were to bury it in much dung and mud, so do these men. And by dung I did not mean food, but luxury and that great wantonness. For what is beyond what is needed is not food but only ruin. For the belly alone was made only for the reception of food; but mouth and throat and tongue for other things far more necessary than these; or rather, not even the belly simply for the reception of food, but for the reception of moderate food. And it shows this, crying out against us countless times when we abuse it by this greed; and it not only cries out, but avenging itself for the injustice exacts the utmost penalty from us. And first it punishes the feet, which carry and lead us away to those evil banquets; then binding the hands that serve it, in return for having brought it so many and such dishes; and many have even had the mouth itself distorted, and the eyes and the head. And as a servant, when something beyond his strength is commanded him, in desperation insults the one who gave the order, so often it too, together with these members, when forced, destroys and ruins even the brain itself. And God arranged this well, that so great harm should come from immoderation, so that when you do not live wisely of your own will, you may learn moderation even against your will through fear of so great corruption. Knowing these things, then, let us flee luxury, let us care for moderation, so that we may both enjoy health of body and, having freed the soul from every sickness, attain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.