Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 59.6–60.3

… , someone says; “for the one is wicked, the other good and gentle.” What are you saying? Do you call your brother wicked, you who are commanded not even to call him Raca? And are you not ashamed, nor do you blush, to expose your brother, your own member, one who shared the same birth pangs with you, who partook of the same table? But if you have a brother according to the flesh, even if he does countless evils, you are eager to cover him, and you think that you too share in the disgrace when he is disgraced; but your spiritual brother, whom you ought to free from slander, you surround with countless accusations? “He is wicked and hard to bear,” you say. Then for this reason become his friend, so that you may stop him from being such, so that you may change him, so that you may bring him back to virtue. “But he is not persuaded,” someone says, “nor does he accept counsel.” How do you know? “For I exhorted him,” you say, “many times.” How many times? “Once and twice.” Bless me! Is this “many times”? For if you had done this all your time, ought you to have grown weary and given up? Do you not see how God continually exhorts us through the prophets, through the apostles, through the evangelists? What then? Have we achieved everything, and been persuaded in everything? Not at all. Did he then stop exhorting? Did he fall silent? Does he not say every day, “You cannot serve God and mammon,” and yet with many the abundance and tyranny of money increases? Does he not cry every day, “Forgive, and it will be forgiven you,” and we become more savage? Does he not continually exhort us to master desire and to be superior to wicked pleasure, while many wallow in this sin more than swine? But nevertheless he does not stop speaking. Why, then, do we not reckon these things with ourselves, and say that God too speaks to us and does not stop doing this, although we disobey him much? That is why he said, “Few are those who are saved.” For if our own virtue is not enough for salvation, but we must depart having others with us too, when we save neither ourselves nor others, what shall we suffer? Whence shall we have hope of salvation any more? But why do I charge these things, when we take no account even of those who live with us, wife and children and servants, but we are anxious about one thing in place of another, like drunken men: that our servants may become more and serve us with much zeal, that our children may receive a large inheritance from us, that our wife may have gold and costly garments and estates; and nowhere do we take thought for themselves, but only for what is theirs? For we provide neither for the wife, but for the things of the wife; nor for the child, but for the things of the child. And we do the same as if someone, seeing a house in bad condition and its walls leaning, neglected to set them up again and built great enclosing walls round it outside; or, when a body was sick, did not care for it, but wove golden garments for it; or, when the mistress was in a bad state, cared for the maidservants and the looms and the furnishings in the house and the rest, leaving her to lie and groan. For this happens now too: when our soul is in a bad and wretched state, raging, reviling, desiring absurdly, vainglorious, rebellious, dragged along the ground, and torn by so many wild beasts, we neglect to drive away its passions and take thought for house and servants. And if a bear escapes unnoticed, we shut our houses and run through the lanes so as not to meet the beast; but now, when not one beast but many such thoughts tear our soul, we do not even perceive it. And in the city we take such care as to shut up the beasts in a desert place and in cages, and we keep them bound not near the council chamber of the city, nor near the law courts, nor near the palace, but somewhere far away; but in the soul, where the council chamber is, where the palace is, where the law court is, the beasts are let loose, crying and making uproar around the very mind and the royal throne. That is why everything is turned upside down, and everything is full of confusion, within and without, and each of us differs in nothing from a city in uproar under the raid of barbarians; and it is the same as if, when a serpent attacks a nest of sparrows, they flutter about, full of confusion, but have nowhere to put an end to their agony. That is why I beg you, let us kill the serpent, let us shut up the beasts, strangle them, slaughter them, and hand over these wicked thoughts to the sword of the Spirit, so that the prophet may not threaten us too with such things as he threatened that city, that onocentaurs will dwell there, and hedgehogs, and serpents. For there are, there are men worse than onocentaurs, living as in a desert and kicking; and the greater part of the youth among us is such. For having wild desires, so they leap, so they kick, going about unbridled, and using their zeal for nothing that is needful. And the fathers are to blame, who compel the colt-breakers to train their own horses with much care, and do not let the colt’s age go on untamed for long, but put on the bridle and all the rest from the beginning; but their own young men they overlook for a long time going about unbridled and without self-control, disgracing themselves with sexual immorality and dice and the pastimes of the lawless theaters, when before sexual immorality they ought to give them to a wife, a self-controlled and very wise wife; for she will lead her husband away from the most absurd pastime and will be in place of a bridle to the colt. For sexual immorality and adultery come from nowhere else than from the young being unrestrained. For if he has a sensible wife, he will take care both of his house and of his reputation and good name. “But he is young,” someone says. I know it too. For if Isaac, being forty years old, took his bride, spending all that age in virginity, much more ought the young under grace to practice this wisdom. But what am I to do? You will not bear to take care of their self-control, but you overlook them being disgraced, defiled, becoming polluted, not knowing that the gain of marriage is to keep the body pure; and if this is not so, there is no benefit in marriage. But you do the opposite: when they are filled with countless stains, then you lead them to marriage, idly and in vain. “For one must wait,” someone says, “so that he may become esteemed, so that he may shine in civic affairs.” But of the soul you take no account; you overlook it cast aside. That is why everything is full of confusion and disorder and tumult, because the soul is a side matter, because necessary things are neglected, while cheap things receive much forethought. Do you not know that you can give your son no such favor as to keep him pure from the uncleanness of sexual immorality? For nothing is equal to the soul. “For what is a man profited,” he says, “if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul?” But the love of money has overturned and cast down everything, and thrust out the exact fear of God, seizing the souls of men as a tyrant seizes a citadel. That is why we neglect both our children’s salvation and our own, looking to one thing only, how, becoming richer, we may leave wealth to others, and they again to others, and those after them to those after them, becoming mere conveyors of our possessions and money, but not masters. Hence comes great folly; hence the free are held in less honor than slaves. For slaves we rebuke, if not for their own sake, then for our own; but the free do not enjoy even this care, but are cheaper to us even than these. And why do I speak of slaves? For children are held in less honor even than cattle, and we care more for asses and horses than for children. If someone has a mule, great is the concern to find the best muleteer, and one who is not a thief, not a drunkard, not unskilled in the craft; but if we must set a tutor over a child’s soul, we choose simply and at random whoever comes along. And yet there is no other craft greater than this. For what is equal to ordering a soul and molding the mind of a young man? For the one who has this skill must be more exact than any painter and any sculptor. But we take no account of this, but look to one thing only, that he may be trained in speech. And this too again we have made our zeal for the sake of money. For he learns to speak not so that he may be able to speak, but so that he may make money; so that if it were possible to be rich even without this, we would take no account even of this. Do you see how great is the tyranny of money? How it has seized everything, and drags all wherever it wishes, binding them like slaves and cattle? But what is the gain to us from so many charges? For we strike at it with words, but it masters us by deeds. Yet not even so shall we stop striking at it with the words of our tongue. For if something more comes of it, both we and you have gained; but if you remain in the same state, our part is wholly accomplished. May God free you from this disease, and grant us to boast in you; for to him be glory and might to the ages of ages. Amen.

“If your brother sins against you, go, reprove him between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” For since he had stretched out a vehement word against those who cause stumbling, and frightened them from every side, so that those who are made to stumble might not in this way become careless in their turn, and, thinking that the whole has been thrown on others, fall into another wickedness, giving themselves airs and wishing to be courted in everything, and run aground on arrogance, see how he checks them too again, and commands the reproof to take place between the two alone, so that he may not make the accusation heavier by the testimony of more people, and the other, becoming more reckless, remain incorrigible. That is why he says, “between you and him alone.” “And if he listens, you have gained your brother.” What is “if he listens”? If he condemns himself, if he is persuaded that he sinned. “You have gained your brother.” He did not say, “You have sufficient vengeance,” but, “You have gained your brother,” showing that the loss from enmity is common to both. For he did not say, “He has gained himself only,” but, “You too have gained him”; by which he showed that both you and he were suffering loss before this, the one losing his brother, the other his own salvation. This he exhorted also when he sat on the mountain, at one time bringing the one who had caused grief to the one grieved and saying, “If you are standing at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, go, be reconciled to your brother”; at another bidding the one wronged to forgive his neighbor: for he taught us to say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” But here he devises yet another way. For he brings not the one who caused grief, but the one grieved, to the other. For since the one who did wrong would not readily come to make his defense, being ashamed and blushing, he draws this one to him; and not simply, but so as to set right what had happened. And he does not say, “Accuse,” nor, “Rebuke,” nor, “Demand satisfaction and account,” but, “Reprove,” he says. For that man is held, as by a kind of stupor, drunk with anger and shame; but you, who are healthy, must go to him who is sick, and make the court private and the healing easy to accept. For “reprove” means nothing else than “remind him of the sin, tell him what you suffered from him”; and this very thing, if it is done as it should be, is the part of one who is pleading the other’s cause and drawing him strongly to reconciliation. What then if he disobeys and is stubbornly disposed? “Take with you one or two more, so that every word may be established on the mouth of two witnesses.” For the more shameless and reckless he is, the more we must hasten to the healing, not to anger and indignation. For a physician too, when he sees the disease hard to yield, does not withdraw nor become impatient, but then prepares himself the more; which he commands us to do here too. “For since you have appeared weaker alone, become stronger by the addition. For the two are enough to convict the one who has sinned.” Do you see how he seeks not only the interest of the one grieved but also that of the one who caused the grief? For the one wronged is this one, who has been taken by the passion, he who is sick and weak and ailing. That is why he often brings the one to the other, now alone, now with others; and if he persists, with the church as well. “Tell it to the church,” he says. And if he were seeking only this man’s interest, he would not have commanded us to forgive seventy times seven times one who repents; he would not have set over him so often so many correctors of his passion; but he would have let him go when he remained uncorrected from the first meeting; but as it is, he commands us to treat him once and twice and three times, now alone, now with two, now with more. That is why with regard to those outside he says nothing of the kind, but, “If someone strikes you on the right cheek,” he says, “turn to him the other also”; but here not so. For what Paul says when he says, “What have I to do with judging those outside?”, while commanding us both to reprove the brothers and to turn away from them and to cut off those who do not obey, so that they may be put to shame—this he too does here, legislating these things about the brothers; and he sets over him three teachers and judges, to teach him what was done in the time of his drunkenness. For even if he is the one who spoke and did all those absurd things, yet he needs others to teach him, just as the drunken man does. For anger and sin are more apt to put one beside oneself than any drunkenness, and set the soul in greater madness. Who, at any rate, was more understanding than David? But nevertheless when he sinned he did not perceive it, desire holding all his reasonings and filling his soul as with smoke. That is why he needed a lamp from the prophet, and words reminding him of what he had done. That is why here too he brings these to the one who has sinned, to speak with him about what he has done. And why does he command this man to reprove him, and not another? Because he would bear this one more gently, the one who was wronged, who was grieved, who was abused. For one does not bear being reproved about the one insulted by another in the same way as by the one insulted himself, especially when he alone reproves him. For when the one who ought to demand justice from him appears to be caring for his salvation, he above all will be able to shame him. Do you see how this is done not for the sake of vengeance but of correction? That is why he does not command him to take the two at once, but when he himself has failed; and not even then does he let a crowd loose on him, but makes the addition only as far as two, or even one; but when he despises these too, then he brings him out to the church. So great is the care he takes that the sins of our neighbors should not be paraded. And yet he could have commanded this from the beginning; but so that this might not happen, he did not command it, but legislates this after a first and second exhortation. And what is, “On the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established”? “You have sufficient testimony,” he says, “that you did all your part, that you left undone nothing of what was yours to do.” “But if he does not listen to these either, tell it to the church,” that is, to those who preside. “And if he does not listen even to the church, let him be to you as the Gentile and the tax collector.” For from then on such a one is incurably sick. But consider, I pray you, how everywhere he sets the tax collector as an example of the greatest wickedness. For above too he says, “Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”; and going on again, “The tax collectors and the harlots go before you into the kingdom of the heavens,” that is, those utterly condemned and sentenced. Let those hear who leap upon unjust gains, who count interest upon interest. And why did he rank him with these? Consoling the one wronged and frightening that man. Is this, then, the only punishment? No; but hear also what follows: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in the heavens.” And he did not say to the president of the church, “Bind such a one,” but, “If you bind,” entrusting the whole to the one grieved himself; and the bonds remain unloosed. So he will suffer the utmost terrors; but it is not the one who brought him who is to blame, but the one who would not be persuaded. Do you see how he bound him with double necessities, both by the punishment here and by the vengeance there? And he threatened these things so that they might not happen, but that, fearing both the casting out from the church and the danger from the bond and being bound in heaven, he might become gentler. And knowing these things, if not from the beginning, at least by the number of the courts he will put away his anger. For this reason he set up a first and a second and a third tribunal, and did not cut him off at once, so that if he disobeys the first, he may yield to the second; and if he spurns that, he may fear the third; and if he takes no account of this, he may be struck with terror at the punishment to come, and at the verdict and sentence from God. “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything whatever that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in the heavens. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” Do you see how from another side too he dissolves enmities, and removes petty-mindedness, and brings us together with one another, not only by the punishment mentioned, but also by the good things that come from love? For having threatened those things against contentiousness, he sets here the great prizes of agreement, if indeed those who agree persuade even the Father about what they ask, and have Christ in their midst. Are there, then, nowhere two who agree? Yes, in many places, perhaps even everywhere. How then do they not obtain everything? Because the causes of failure are many. For often they ask what is not expedient. And why do you wonder if certain others do, when even Paul experienced this, when he heard, “My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in weakness”? Or they are unworthy of those who heard these things, and do not contribute their own part; and he seeks those who are like those men; that is why he says “of you,” the virtuous, those who display an angelic way of life. Or they pray against those who have grieved them, seeking vengeance and punishment, which is forbidden: “For pray,” he says, “for your enemies.” Or, sinning without repentance, they ask for mercy, which it is impossible to receive, not only if they ask themselves, but even if others who have great confidence before God entreat for them; as Jeremiah, praying for the Jews, heard, “Do not pray for this people, for I will not hear you.” But if all is present, and you ask what is expedient, and contribute everything of your own, and lead an apostolic life, and have concord and love toward your neighbor, you will obtain what you ask; for the Master is a lover of mankind.

Then, since he had said, “by my Father,” to show that he himself is the giver, and not only the one who begot him, he added, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” What then? Are there not two or three gathered in his name? There are, but rarely. For he does not mean simply the gathering, nor does he seek this only, but above all, as I said before, also the rest of virtue along with this; and then he demands this very thing too with great exactness. What he says is something like this: “If anyone holds me as the chief ground of his friendship with his neighbor, I will be with him, if he is virtuous in other things too.” But now we see the majority having other grounds of friendship. For one loves because he is loved; another because he was honored; another because so-and-so has been useful to him in some other matter of this life; another for some other such reason; but for Christ’s sake it is hard to find anyone loving his neighbor genuinely and as he ought. For most are bound to one another by the affairs of this life. But Paul did not love so, but for Christ’s sake; that is why, even when he was not loved as he loved, he did not dissolve his love, since he had laid down a strong root for his affection. But not so now; but examining everything, we shall find among the many that anything produces friendship rather than this. And if someone gave me authority to make this examination in so great a multitude, I would have shown that most are bound to one another by worldly grounds. And this is plain from the causes that produce enmity. For since they are joined to one another by these perishable things, for this reason they are neither warm toward one another nor lasting; but insult, and loss of money, and envy, and love of vainglory, and everything of the kind, when it comes, cuts the affection. For it does not find the root spiritual. For if it were such, nothing of this life would have dissolved spiritual things. For love for Christ’s sake is firm and unbreakable and impregnable, and nothing will be able to tear it apart: not slanders, not dangers, not death, nor any other such thing. For even if one who loves so suffers countless things, looking to the ground of his love, he will not withdraw. For he who loves because he is loved, if he suffers anything unpleasant, dissolves his love; but he who [loves] from there … “love never fails.” For what can you say? … But this too makes you love the more, if you love for Christ’s sake. For the things that overturn love in other cases, here become what builds it up. How? First, because such a one is the cause of rewards for you; second, because one so disposed needs more help and much care. For this reason one who loves so does not inquire into family, nor country, nor wealth, nor love toward himself, nor anything else of the kind; but even if he is hated, even if insulted, even if slain, he remains loving, having a sufficient ground for loving, Christ; hence he stands fixed, firm, unshakable, looking to him. For Christ too so loved his enemies, the ungrateful, the insolent, the blasphemers, those who hated him, those who did not even wish to see him, those who preferred wood and stones to him, loving them with the highest love, beyond which none other can be found. “For greater love than this no one has,” he says, “that one lay down his life for his friends.” And see how he continues to care for those who crucified him and committed such outrages against him. For he speaks to the Father about them, saying, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And afterward he sent the disciples to them too. This love, then, let us too emulate; let us look to it, so that, becoming imitators of Christ, we may attain both the good things here and those to come, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might to the ages of ages. Amen.