Homilies on Matthew, Homily 20

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. For they disfigure their faces so that people may see that they are fasting.” Here we should sigh aloud and weep bitterly, for we not only imitate the hypocrites but have even surpassed them. For I know, yes, I know many who fast and make a show of it, and even others who neglect to fast and yet wear the masks of those who do, covering themselves with an excuse worse than their sin. For they say, “I do this so that I may not give offense to the people.” What are you saying? There is a law of God commanding these things, and you talk about giving offense? Do you think that by keeping it you give offense, and by breaking it you keep people from taking offense? What could be worse than this foolishness? Won’t you stop becoming worse than the hypocrites themselves and doubling your hypocrisy? And when you consider how extreme this evil is, won’t you feel ashamed at the force of the expression before us? For He did not merely say, “they play a part,” but, wishing to strike them more deeply, He says, “For they disfigure their faces”; that is, they corrupt and ruin them. But if looking pale to win empty admiration disfigures the face, what should we say about women who corrupt their faces with colors and paints, to the ruin of unchaste young men? For while the former harm only themselves, these women harm both themselves and those who look at them. So we should flee both plagues, keeping more than enough distance from them. For He commanded us not only to avoid making a display, but even to seek concealment. He had done the same thing before. And while, in speaking of giving alms, He did not leave His statement unqualified, but after saying, “Take care not to do it before people,” added, “to be seen by them,” He made no such qualification about fasting and prayer. Why might this be? Because it is impossible to keep giving alms entirely hidden, but it is possible to do so with prayer and fasting. So when He said, “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” He was not speaking about hands, but about our duty to keep ourselves carefully hidden from everyone. And when He commanded us to enter our private room, He did not command us to pray exclusively there, or primarily there, but again indirectly conveyed the same point. Likewise here, in commanding us “to be anointed,” He did not establish a rule that we must actually anoint ourselves. For then we would all be found breaking this law, especially those who have taken the greatest pains to keep it: the communities of monks who have made their homes in the mountains. This, then, was not what He commanded. Rather, because people in ancient times customarily anointed themselves whenever they were enjoying themselves and celebrating (as we can clearly see from David and Daniel), He said that we were to anoint ourselves, not that we should actually do this, but that we should make every effort, with the greatest care, to hide this achievement of ours. And to convince you that this is so, He Himself, when demonstrating by His actions what He commanded in words, fasted forty days in secret and neither anointed nor washed Himself. Yet although He did not do these things, He certainly fulfilled the whole command without craving empty praise. This, then, is what He commands us to do as well, both setting the hypocrites before us and warning His hearers twice against following them. And He conveyed something else by this name—I mean “hypocrites.” He draws us away from that evil desire not only by showing how ridiculous it is, or how severe a punishment it brings, but also by showing that such deception lasts only a little while. For an actor seems glorious only as long as the audience remains seated—or rather, not even then in everyone’s eyes. For most spectators know who he is and what part he is playing. But when the audience disperses, he is more clearly exposed to everyone. Now this, you see, is what those who crave empty praise must inevitably experience. Even here, most people recognize that they are not what they seem, but are merely wearing a mask. They will be exposed far more fully in the next life, when everything appears “naked and open.” And He draws them away from the hypocrites by yet another motive, showing that His command is easy. For He does not make the fast stricter or command us to fast more, but tells us not to lose its crown. So what seems hard to bear is common to us and the hypocrites, for they fast too. But what is easiest—not losing the reward after our labors—“this is what I command,” He says. He adds nothing to our efforts, but secures our wages for us and does not let us go away unrewarded, as they do. Indeed, they will not even imitate those who wrestle in the Olympic games. Although such a great crowd and so many rulers are seated there, the wrestlers wish to please just one person, the one who awards the victory, even though he is far inferior to them. But you have two reasons to display your victory to Him: first, He is the one who awards it, and second, He is incomparably superior to everyone seated in the theater. Yet you display it to others who, far from helping you, secretly do you the greatest harm. “Still, I do not forbid even this,” He says. “Only, if you also want to make a display before people, wait, and I will grant you this too, far more abundantly and with great benefit. As things stand, this completely cuts you off from the glory that comes from Me, just as despising these things binds you closely to Me. But then you will enjoy everything in complete security.” Even before that final reward, you will reap no small benefit in this world: you will have trampled all human glory underfoot, freed yourself from the harsh slavery of serving people, and become someone who truly practices virtue. As things stand, however, as long as you have this attitude, if you find yourself in a desert, all your virtue will desert you, since no one is there to watch you. This insults virtue itself, if you pursue it not for its own sake but with an eye to the ropemaker, the brassworker, and the lowest of the common people, so that the wicked and those far removed from virtue may admire you. You invite virtue’s enemies to its display and spectacle, as though someone chose to live chastely, not because chastity is excellent, but to make a display before prostitutes. You too, it seems, would choose virtue only for the sake of virtue’s enemies. Yet you ought to admire her for this very reason, that even her enemies praise her—and still admire her, as you should, for her own sake, not for others. For we too consider it an insult when we are loved not for our own sake but for someone else’s. I tell you to think the same way about virtue: neither pursue her for the sake of others nor obey God for people’s sake, but obey people for God’s sake. For if you do the opposite, though you seem to pursue virtue, you have provoked God just as much as someone who does not pursue her. Just as he disobeyed by failing to act, you disobeyed by acting in a way contrary to the law. 2. “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth.” So, after driving out the disease of craving empty praise, and not before, He introduces His teaching on voluntary poverty at the right moment. For nothing trains people to love riches as much as the love of glory. This, for example, is why people assemble those herds of slaves, that swarm of eunuchs, their horses with gold trappings, their silver tables, and all the other things more ridiculous still: not to meet any need or enjoy any pleasure, but to make a display before the crowd. Earlier He had only said that we must show mercy, but here He also points out how much mercy we must show when He says, “Do not store up treasure.” Since the tyranny of this passion made it impossible to introduce His whole teaching on despising riches at the outset, He divides it into small portions and, after freeing the hearer’s mind, instills it there so that it will be welcomed. That is why, you see, He first said, “Blessed are the merciful,” then, “Come to an agreement with your adversary,” and then again, “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your cloak too.” But here He says something much greater than all these. There His meaning was, “If you see a lawsuit approaching, do this, since going without and being free from conflict is better than having possessions and fighting.” But here, assuming there is no adversary or anyone suing you, and without mentioning any such person, He teaches contempt for riches as a good in itself. He implies that He makes these laws less for the sake of those who receive mercy than for the giver’s sake, so that even when no one is wronging us or dragging us into court, we may still despise our possessions and give them to those in need. Even here He has not said everything, but still speaks gently, although in the wilderness He had demonstrated to an extraordinary degree His struggles on this matter. Yet He does not state this or bring it forward, for the time had not yet come to reveal it. Instead, for a while He seeks out reasons, speaking on this subject as an adviser rather than a lawgiver. For after saying, “Do not store up treasures on earth,” He added, “where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” For now He shows the harm of treasure here and the benefit of treasure there, both from its location and from the things that destroy it. And He does not stop here, but adds another argument. First He urges them by appealing to what they fear most. “What are you afraid of?” He says. “That your possessions will be used up if you give alms? Then give alms, and they will not be used up. What is more, far from being used up, they will actually increase, for the things in heaven are added to them.” For a while, however, He does not say this, but leaves it until later. For now He brings forward what was most likely to persuade them: that in this way their treasure would remain intact for them. And He draws them from both directions. For He did not merely say, “If you give alms, it is preserved,” but also threatened the opposite: if you do not give, it perishes. And see His indescribable wisdom. He did not say, “You are only leaving it to others,” since people find that pleasant too. Instead, He alarms them on another ground, showing that they do not even achieve this. For even if people do not rob them, there are things sure to rob them: “the moth” and “the rust.” Although this damage seems very easy to prevent, it is nevertheless irresistible and uncontrollable. Whatever you devise, you will be unable to stop this harm. “What, then? Does a moth destroy gold?” Even if a moth does not, thieves do. “What, then? Has everyone been robbed?” Even if not everyone has, most have. 3. For this reason He adds another argument, which I have already mentioned, saying, “Where a person’s treasure is, there his heart is too.” “Even if none of these things happens,” He says, “you will suffer no small harm by being nailed to the things below, becoming a slave instead of a free person, shutting yourself out of heavenly things, and being unable to think about anything lofty, but only about money, interest and loans, profits, and dishonorable business dealings.” What could be more miserable than this? Such a person really will be worse off than any slave, bringing a terrible tyranny upon himself and giving up what matters most: human dignity and freedom. For no matter how much anyone speaks to you, you will be unable to hear anything that concerns your own good while your mind is nailed down to money. Bound like a dog to a tomb by the tyranny of riches, more cruelly than by any chain, barking at everyone who comes near you, you constantly have this one task: to guard for others what you have stored up. What could be more miserable than this? But because this was beyond His hearers’ understanding, and most could not easily see the harm or recognize the benefit, since perceiving either required a spirit with greater self-control, He first placed it after those other, obvious points, saying, “Where a person’s treasure is, there his heart is too.” Then He makes it clear again by shifting His teaching from things understood by the mind to things perceived by the senses, saying, “The light of the body is the eye.” What He says amounts to this: Do not bury gold in the earth or do anything else of that kind, for you are only gathering it for the moth, the rust, and the thieves. Even if you escape these evils entirely, you will not escape the enslavement of your heart, its being nailed to everything below: “For wherever your treasure may be, there your heart is too.” So when you store up treasures in heaven, you will reap not only this benefit, receiving the rewards for these things, but already, while in this world, you receive your reward by reaching that harbor, setting your affections on the things there, and caring about what is there (for it is perfectly clear that wherever you have stored your treasures, you transfer your mind as well). In the same way, if you do this on earth, you will experience the opposite. But if the saying is unclear to you, listen to what follows. “The light of the body is the eye. So if your eye is undivided, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. But if the light in you is darkness, how great the darkness is!” He turns His teaching toward things more accessible to our senses. Since He had spoken of the mind as enslaved and taken captive, and few could easily understand this, He transfers the lesson to outward things lying before people’s eyes, so that through these they may understand the others too. “If you do not know,” He says, “what it means to suffer harm in your mind, learn from the things of the body. For what the eye is to the body, the mind is to the soul.” You would not choose to wear gold and dress in silk while having your eyes put out, but would consider their sound health more desirable than all such luxuries (for if you lose or squander this health, everything else in your life will do you no good). Just as, when the eyes are blinded and their light is extinguished, most of the other parts of the body lose their ability to function, so too, when the mind is corrupted, your life will be filled with countless evils. So just as our aim in the body is to keep the eye healthy, our aim in the soul is to keep the mind healthy. But if we mutilate what should give light to the rest, how will we ever see clearly again? For just as someone who destroys the spring also dries up the river, someone who extinguishes his understanding throws all his actions in this life into confusion. That is why He says, “If the light in you is darkness, how great the darkness is!” For when the pilot has drowned, the candle has gone out, and the general has been taken prisoner, what hope will remain for those under their command? So, passing over for now the plots that wealth gives rise to, the conflicts and lawsuits (which He had already indicated when He said, “The adversary will hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer”), and presenting something worse than all these as certain to happen, He draws us away from this wicked desire. For being in prison is nowhere near as terrible as having the mind enslaved by this disease. The former is not certain to happen, but the latter follows immediately from the desire for riches. This is why He places it after the first, as something more terrible and certain to happen. For God, He says, gave us understanding so that we might drive away all ignorance, judge things rightly, and, using it as a kind of weapon and light against everything harmful or painful, remain safe. But we betray the gift for the sake of unnecessary and useless things. For what use are soldiers dressed in gold when the general is being dragged away captive? What good is a beautifully equipped ship when the pilot has sunk beneath the waves? What advantage is a well-proportioned body when its eyes have been blinded? Suppose someone made the physician sick—when he ought to be healthy so that he can cure our diseases—and then told him to lie on a silver couch in a room of gold. This would do the sick no good. In the same way, if you corrupt the mind, which has the power to subdue our passions, then even if you place it beside a treasure, far from doing it any good, you have inflicted the greatest possible loss and harmed your whole soul. 4. Do you see how He uses the very things that most often lead people everywhere to pursue wickedness to deter them from it most powerfully and bring them back to virtue? “Why do you want riches?” He says. “Isn’t it so that you can enjoy pleasure and luxury? Yet this, above all, is what you will fail to gain through them. The result will be just the opposite.” For if, when our eyes have been put out, we cannot perceive anything pleasant because of our calamity, this will be far more true when the mind is corrupted and maimed. Again, why do you bury it in the earth? So that it may be kept safe? “Here too,” He says, “the result is the opposite.” So, just as He dealt with someone who fasts, gives alms, and prays for empty admiration, drawing him away from the craving for empty praise through the very things he most desires—“Why,” He says, “do you pray and give alms this way? Because you love the glory people can give you? Then do not pray this way, and you will obtain it on the day to come”—so He has also captured the greedy person through the things he cares about most. “What do you want?” He says. “To preserve your wealth and enjoy pleasure? I will give you both in great abundance if you store your gold in the place I tell you.” It is true that later He showed more clearly the evil effect this has on the mind, when He mentioned the thorns. But even here, for now, He has forcefully conveyed the same thing by portraying someone driven out of his mind in this way as living in darkness. And just as people in darkness see nothing clearly, but think a rope is a snake when they look at it, and are terrified at the sight of mountains and ravines, so it is with these people. They view with suspicion things that do not alarm those who can see. Among other things, they tremble at poverty—or rather, not only at poverty, but even at any trivial loss. Indeed, if they lose some little thing, those who lack necessary food do not grieve and mourn as they do. Many rich people have even hanged themselves because they could not bear such misfortune. And being insulted and mistreated seems so intolerable to them that many have actually taken their own lives for this reason too. For wealth has made them soft in the face of everything except serving it. When it commands them to serve it, they dare to commit murders, inflict beatings, hurl insults, and accept every kind of disgrace. This is the height of misery: to be the most effeminate of all people where self-control is needed, but to become more shameless and stubborn where greater caution is required. In fact, they suffer the same sort of thing as someone who has spent all his possessions on improper things. When necessary expenses arise, such a person has nothing to meet them and suffers incurable evils, because everything he had was squandered beforehand. And just as performers on the stage, skilled in those wicked arts, go through many strange and dangerous feats in practicing them, yet are more ridiculous than anyone in other necessary and useful activities, so it is with these people too. Those who walk a tightrope display so much courage, but if some great emergency calls for boldness or courage, they are incapable of it and cannot even bear to think of such a thing. In the same way, the rich dare anything for money, but will not submit to anything, great or small, for the sake of self-restraint. And just as the former practice a dangerous and fruitless occupation, these people too undergo many dangers and disasters but achieve nothing beneficial. Indeed, they endure a double darkness: their eyes are blinded by the corruption of their minds, and their deceptive cares envelop them in a thick fog. So they cannot easily see through it at all. Someone in darkness is freed from it as soon as the sun appears, but someone whose eyes have been mutilated is not freed even when the sun shines. This is precisely the condition of these people. Even now that the Sun of Righteousness has shone out and is warning them, they do not listen, because their wealth has closed their eyes. So they must endure a double darkness, partly from themselves and partly from disregarding their teacher. 5. Let us, then, pay close attention to Him so that, late as it is, we may finally recover our sight. And how can you recover your sight? By learning how you were blinded. How, then, were you blinded? By your wicked desire. For the love of money, like an unhealthy fluid that has collected over a clear eyeball, has thickened the cloud. But even this cloud can easily be scattered and broken apart if we will receive the ray of Christ’s teaching, if we will listen to Him warning us and saying, “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth.” “But,” someone says, “what good does listening do me as long as desire has possession of me?” First, continual listening will have the power to destroy even the desire. Next, if it continues to possess you, consider that this thing is not really even a desire. For what sort of desire is it to live in harsh slavery, to be subject to a tyranny, to be bound on every side, to live in darkness, to be full of turmoil, to endure fruitless labor, and to guard your wealth for others, often for your very enemies? What sort of desire do these things satisfy? Or rather, shouldn’t they inspire every effort to flee and turn away? What sort of desire is it to store up treasure among thieves? If you desire wealth at all, move it where it can remain safe and undisturbed. For what you are doing now is surely the behavior of someone who desires not riches, but slavery, insult, loss, and continual distress. Yet if anyone on earth showed you a place safe from interference, even if he led you into the desert itself and promised that your wealth would be kept secure, you would not hesitate or hold back. You would trust him and deposit your possessions there. But when God makes you this promise instead of a human being, and offers you Heaven instead of the desert, you choose the opposite. Yet however many safeguards your possessions have here below, you can never be free from concern about them. I mean that even if you do not lose them, you will never be free from the anxiety that you might. But there you will experience none of these things. And notice something more: you do not merely bury your gold, but plant it. For the same thing is both treasure and seed—or rather, it is more than either. A seed does not remain forever, but this lasts perpetually. Again, treasure does not sprout, but this bears fruits for you that never die. 6. But if you speak to me about the time involved and the delay of the reward, I too can point out and explain how much you receive back even here. Besides all this, I will try to show you, from the very things of this life, that this excuse is groundless. Even in this present life you provide many things that you yourself will not enjoy. If anyone finds fault, you appeal to your children and their children, and think you have found enough justification for your unnecessary labors. For when, in extreme old age, you build splendid houses, which in many cases will not be finished until after you have died; when you plant trees in the field that will bear fruit after many years; when you buy properties and estates that will not become yours for a long time, and eagerly busy yourself with many other things whose enjoyment you will never reap—is it really for your own sake or for those who come after you that you work so hard? How, then, is it not the height of folly to have no hesitation here about the delay, even though because of it you will lose all the reward of your labors, but there to remain completely inactive because of the wait, even though it brings you greater gain and does not pass your good things on to others, but secures the gifts for you? Besides, the delay itself is not long. These things are at the door, and for all we know everything concerning us may be fulfilled even in our own generation, and that fearful day may arrive, setting before us the awesome and incorruptible judgment seat. For most of the signs have been fulfilled, the gospel has been preached in every part of the world, the predictions of wars, earthquakes, and famines have come to pass, and the time remaining is not great. But do you see no signs? This very thing is itself a very great sign. For neither did the people in Noah’s time see any warning of that universal destruction. In the midst of their playing, eating, marrying, and doing everything they usually did, that fearful judgment overtook them. In the same way, the people in Sodom were living in pleasure, suspecting nothing of what would happen to them, when they were consumed by the lightning that came down upon them. Considering all these things, then, let us set about preparing for our departure from here. For even if the day when all things come to their end never overtakes us, each person’s end is at the door, whether he is old or young. And after people have departed from here, they can no longer buy oil or obtain pardon through prayers, even if the one pleading is Abraham, Noah, Job, or Daniel. While we have the opportunity, then, let us store up great confidence for ourselves in advance, gather oil in abundance, and move everything into Heaven, so that at the proper time, when we need these things most, we may enjoy them all: by the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the might, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.