Homilies on Romans, Homily 3

“For the anger of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Notice Paul's judgment: after encouraging them with gentler things, he turns to more frightening ones. After saying that the Gospel brings salvation and life, that it is the power of God, that it produces salvation and righteousness, he mentions what could well frighten those who disregard it. Since most people are generally drawn less by the promise of good things than by the fear of painful ones, he draws them from both sides. This is also why God not only promised a kingdom but threatened hell. And the Prophets spoke to the Jews this way, always mixing the bad with the good. This is why Paul also varies his discussion this way, yet not at random: he puts the good things first and the bad afterward, to show that the former came from God's guiding purpose, but the latter from the wickedness of those who turned away. The prophet likewise puts the good first, saying, “If you are willing and will obey me, you will eat the good of the land: but if you are unwilling and will not obey me, the sword will devour you.” (Is. i. 19, 20.) Paul follows the same course here. But notice his point: Christ came to bring forgiveness, righteousness, and life, yet not just in any way, but through the Cross. This is the greatest and most wonderful thing: He not only gave such things but also suffered such things. If, then, you arrogantly scorn the gifts, the penalties will await you. And see how he intensifies his language: “For the anger of God,” he says, “is revealed from heaven.” How is this apparent? If a believer asks this, we will tell him about Christ's declarations. But if an unbeliever, a Greek, asks it, Paul silences him with what he says shortly about God's judgment, offering indisputable proof from their own actions. And this is by far one of his most striking qualities: he shows that those who speak against the truth themselves bear witness to its teachings through what they do and say every day. But more on this later; for now, let us stay with what is before us. “For the anger of God is revealed from heaven.” Indeed, even here this often happens in famines, plagues, and wars, for people are punished both individually and collectively. What, then, will be new? The punishment will be greater, will extend to everyone, and will follow different principles. What happens now is meant to correct; what happens then will be for vengeance. St. Paul also showed this when he said, “We are disciplined now, so that we may not be condemned with the world.” (1 Cor. xi. 32.) Now, many people commonly think such things come from human malice rather than anger from above. But then the punishment from God will be unmistakable, when the Judge, seated on the terrifying judgment seat, orders some to be dragged to the furnaces, some to the outer darkness, and some to other unrelenting and unbearable punishments. And why does he not say plainly, “The Son of God is coming with ten thousand angels and will call each person to account,” but instead say that “the anger of God is revealed”? His hearers were still beginners, so he first draws them through things they readily accept. Besides what is mentioned here, he also seems to me to be directing his argument against the Greeks. That is why he begins with this and introduces Christ's judgment afterward. “Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Here he shows that ungodliness has many paths, while truth has one. Error is varied, takes many forms, and combines many elements, but truth is one. And after speaking about doctrines, he speaks about conduct, mentioning human unrighteousness. For there are also various kinds of unrighteousness. One concerns money, as when someone treats his neighbor unjustly in financial dealings; another concerns women, when a man leaves his own wife and intrudes on someone else's marriage. St. Paul calls this defrauding too, saying, “Let no one overstep or defraud his brother in the matter.” (1 Thess. iv. 6.) Others injure neither their neighbor's wife nor his property, but his reputation, and this too is unrighteousness. For “a good name is better than great riches.” (Prov. xxii. 1.) Some, however, say that Paul is speaking about doctrines here too. Still, nothing prevents his words from referring to both. What it means “to suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” you will learn from what follows. Ver. 19. “Because what can be known of God is evident in them, for God has shown it to them.” But they bestowed this glory on blocks of wood and stones. Suppose someone is entrusted with the king's goods and ordered to spend them for the king's glory, but instead wastes them on robbers, prostitutes, and witches, enriching them from the king's stores. He is punished for doing the kingdom the greatest wrong. In the same way, those who received the knowledge of God and His glory and bestowed it on idols “suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.” At least as far as they could, they treated that knowledge unjustly by failing to direct it toward its proper objects. Has the meaning now become clear to you, or must we make it clearer still? Perhaps a little more needs to be said. What, then, is being said here? God placed the knowledge of Himself in people from the beginning. But they bestowed this knowledge on blocks of wood and stones and so treated the truth unjustly, at least as far as they could. For it remains unchanged, with its own glory unaltered. “And how is it clear that He placed this knowledge in them, Paul?” “Because,” he says, “what can be known of Him is evident in them.” But this is an assertion, not a proof. Establish it, then, and show me that the knowledge of God was clear to them and that they deliberately turned away. How, then, was it clear? Did He send them a voice from above? Certainly not. Instead, He did something more capable of drawing them to Him than a voice: He set Creation before them, so that the wise and the uneducated, Scythians and barbarians alike, could see and learn the beauty of visible things and rise from them to God. That is why he says, Ver. 20. “For His invisible qualities have been clearly seen since the Creation of the world, understood through the things that have been made.” The prophet also said this: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Ps. xix. 1.) For what will the Greeks (i.e. Heathen) say on that day? “We did not know You”? Didn't you hear heaven sending out a voice through what you saw, while the orderly harmony of everything spoke more clearly than a trumpet? Didn't you see the hours of night and day continually keeping their fixed course, the beautiful order of winter, spring, and the other seasons remaining steady and unchanged, the obedience (εὐγνωμοσύνην) of the sea amid all its turbulence and waves? Didn't you see everything keeping its order and loudly proclaiming the Creator through its beauty and grandeur? Paul sums up all these things, and more, when he says, “His invisible qualities have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, understood through the things that have been made, even His eternal Power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” Yet God did not make these things for this purpose, even if this was the result. He did not set so great a system of instruction before them to strip them of every excuse, but so that they might come to know Him. By failing to recognize Him, however, they deprived themselves of every excuse. Then, to show how they have been left without excuse, he says, Ver. 21. “Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God.” This is the greatest charge of all; the second is that they also worshiped idols. Jeremiah likewise accused them, saying, “This people has committed two evils: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug broken cisterns for themselves.” (Jer. ii. 13.) Then, as evidence that they had known God but had not directed their knowledge toward its proper object, he brings forward this very fact: they knew gods. That is why he adds, “Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God.” And he names the cause of their fall into such senselessness. What was it? They entrusted everything to their own reasoning. Still, he does not put it that way, but much more sharply: “but became futile in their reasoning, and their foolish heart was darkened.” If someone tries to travel an unfamiliar road or sail an unfamiliar sea on a moonless night, far from reaching his destination quickly, he will soon be lost. In the same way, they tried to travel the road to Heaven, but extinguished the light within themselves and entrusted themselves instead to the darkness of their own reasoning. Seeking among bodies for Him who has no body, and among shapes for Him who has no shape, they suffered a most miserable shipwreck. Besides what has already been said, he names another cause of their error when he says, Ver. 22. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” They had a very high opinion of themselves and refused to follow the path God had commanded, so they plunged into senseless reasoning (1 ms. διανοίας). Then, to show in outline how miserable a wave overwhelmed them and how completely they lacked any excuse, he goes on to say, Ver. 23. “And exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image resembling corruptible man, and birds, four-footed animals, and creeping things.” The first charge is that they did not find God; the second, that they had great and clear (Sav. marg. “wise”) means of doing so; the third, that they nevertheless claimed to be wise; the fourth, that they not only failed to find that Being worthy of reverence, but even lowered Him to demons, stones, and blocks of wood. He also brings down their arrogance in the Epistle to the Corinthians, but differently there than here. There he strikes them through the Cross, saying, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men.” (1 Cor. i. 25.) Here, however, without making any comparison, he holds their wisdom up to ridicule on its own, showing it to be foolishness and a mere display of empty boasting. Then, to teach you that they possessed the knowledge of God and betrayed it in this way, he says, “they exchanged.” Now, someone who exchanges has something to exchange. They wanted to discover more and would not accept the limits given to them, and so they lost even what lay within those limits. They craved new inventions, for that is the character of everything Greek. This is why they opposed one another, why Aristotle rose against Plato, why the Stoics blustered (ἐφρυάξαντο 6 mss. “fenced themselves,” ἐφράξαντο: which Field inclines to prefer) against him, and why one became hostile to one thinker and another to another. So we should be less inclined to admire their wisdom than to turn away from them in indignation and hate them, because through this very thing they became fools. Had they not entrusted what they possessed to arguments, syllogisms, and sophistries, they would not have suffered what they did. Then, to strengthen the accusation against them, he holds all their idolatry up to ridicule. In the first place, the exchange itself would be quite enough to deserve scorn. But exchanging it for such things is beyond all excuse. What, then, did they exchange it for, and what did they clothe in His Glory? They should have had some understanding of Him: for example, that He is God, that He is Lord of all, that He brought them into existence when they did not exist, that He providentially governs the world, and that He cares for them. These things are the “Glory of God.” To whom, then, did they attribute it? Not even to human beings, but “to an image resembling corruptible man.” Nor did they stop there, but sank even to animals, or rather to images of them. But consider, please, Paul's wisdom: he takes the two extremes, God the Highest and creeping things the lowest—or rather, not creeping things, but images of them—to expose their obvious madness. The knowledge they should have had of Him Who is incomparably more excellent than everything, they bestowed on what was incomparably more worthless than everything. But someone may ask, “What does this have to do with the philosophers?” What I have said applies to them most of all. For their teachers are the Egyptians, who invented these things. And Plato, who is considered more worthy of reverence than the rest, boasts of these teachers. (Plat. Tim. 21. B. etc.) His own teacher stands in senseless awe of these idols, for he is the one who tells them to sacrifice the rooster to Asclepius (his last words, Phædo), where (i.e. in his temple. So Field from mss.) there are images of these animals and creeping things. And you can see Apollo and Bacchus worshiped alongside these creeping things. Some philosophers even raised bulls, scorpions, dragons, and all the rest of that foolishness to Heaven. For everywhere the devil worked eagerly to bring people down before images of creeping things and to place beneath the most senseless things of all the human being whom God willed to raise above the heavens. And you will see that their leading thinker falls under these remarks on other grounds as well. For after collecting the poets' statements and saying that we should believe them about matters concerning God because they have accurate knowledge, he has nothing else to offer but the “linked sweetness” of these absurdities, and then says that this utterly ridiculous nonsense must be accepted as true. Ver. 24. “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves.” From this he shows that ungodliness caused even the perversion of the laws. Here, “He gave them up” means that He left them alone. When an army commander retreats and leaves because the battle is going against him, he gives his soldiers up to the enemy, not by pushing them into the enemy's hands himself, but by withdrawing his own help. In the same way, God left those who were unwilling to receive what comes from Him and who were the first to leap away from Him, although He Himself had fully done His part. Consider: He set the world before them as a means of instruction; He gave them reason and an understanding capable of recognizing what they needed. The people of that time used none of these things for salvation, but turned what they had received toward the opposite end. What, then, was to be done? Drag them by force and compulsion? But that would not make them virtuous. All that remained, then, was for Him to leave them alone. And He did this too so that, if in no other way, they might learn through experience what they lusted after and flee from such shameful things (3 mss. add εἰκότως, and with reason). Suppose a king's son dishonored his father and chose to live with robbers, murderers, and grave robbers, preferring their activities to his father's house. His father leaves him, let us say, so that through actual experience he may learn how extreme his own madness is. But why does he mention no other sin—murder, for instance, or greed, or anything else of that kind—but only sexual immorality? He seems to me to be alluding to his audience at the time and to those who were to receive the Epistle. “To uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves.” Notice the emphasis here, for it is very severe. His meaning is that they needed no one else to subject them to degrading violence: they did to themselves the very things their enemies would have done to them. Then, taking up the accusation again, he says, Ver. 25. “Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator.” He lists specifically the things that deserve utter scorn, but speaks in general terms about what seemed more serious than the rest. Through all of it, he shows that serving the creature is Greek. And see how forceful he makes his statement: he does not simply say, “they served the creature,” but “more than the Creator.” In this way he continually strengthens the accusation and, through the comparison, removes every ground for lessening their guilt. “Who is blessed forever. Amen.” But by this he means that He was not harmed in the least. For He Himself remains “blessed forever.” Here he shows that He did not leave them alone in self-defense, since He Himself suffered nothing. Even if they acted insolently toward Him, He remained untouched by their insolence, and the majesty of His glory suffered no harm; He remains continually blessed. For if a human being, through philosophy, often feels no injury from the insults people offer him, much less would God, the imperishable and unalterable Nature, the unchangeable and immovable Glory. For people become like God in this respect when they feel no injury from those who seek to mistreat them, and are neither insulted by those who insult them, nor beaten by those who beat them, nor scorned by those who scorn them. “And how can this possibly be?” someone may ask. It is possible—yes, certainly possible—when you are not upset by what is done. “And how,” someone may ask, “is it possible not to be upset?” Better to ask, how is it possible to be upset? Tell me: if your little child insulted you, would you count the insult as an insult? Would you be upset? Surely not. And if you were upset, wouldn't you be ridiculous? Let us adopt the same attitude toward our neighbors, and then we will feel no displeasure. For those who insult us are more senseless than children. Let us not even seek freedom from insults, but the ability to bear them when they come. This is the only honor that is secure. Why? Because this is under your control, while the other depends on someone else. Don't you see how diamond throws back the blows it receives? “But nature,” you will say, “gives it this property.” Yet you too have the power to become by free choice what it is by nature. How? Don't you know that the children in the furnace were not burned and that Daniel in the den suffered no harm? This can happen even now. Lions stand beside us too: anger and lust, with terrifying teeth, tearing apart whoever falls among them. (Plato Rep. viii.) Become like that (ἔκεινον 3 mss.) Daniel, then, and do not let these passions sink their fangs into your soul. “But that,” you will say, “was entirely due to grace.” Yes, because acts of free will prepared the way for it. So if we are willing to train ourselves to have a similar character, grace is available even now. And even if the beasts are hungry, they will not touch your sides. For if they were awed at the sight of a servant's body, how could they do anything but remain still when they see the members of Christ (and that is what we believers are)? If they do not remain still, it is the fault of those thrown among them. Indeed, many spend lavishly on these lions by keeping prostitutes, violating marriages, and taking revenge on enemies. And so they are torn to pieces before they even reach the bottom of the den. (Dan. vi. 24.) But this did not happen to Daniel, nor would it happen to us if we had the same resolve. Something even greater would happen than happened then. The lions did not harm him; but if we are clearheaded, those who harm us will actually benefit us. This is how Paul gained his splendor through those who opposed and plotted against him; how Job did so through his many afflictions, Jeremiah through the muddy pit, Noah through the flood, Abel through the treachery, Moses through the bloodthirsty Jews, and Elisha as well. This is how each of those worthy people of old came to wear their shining crowns: through afflictions and trials, rather than ease and softness. That is also why Christ, knowing this to be the foundation of a good reputation, said to His disciples, “In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” (John xvi. 33.) “What, then,” they will say, “haven't many been put to flight by these terrors?” Yes, but that came from their own carelessness, not from the nature of temptation. But may He who “with the temptation also makes a way of escape, so that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. x. 13) stand beside all of us and stretch out His hand, so that we may be gloriously proclaimed victorious and attain the everlasting crowns, through the grace and love for humanity (5 mss. add the rest and so Field passim) of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom, and with Whom, to the Father be glory, with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.