Homilies on Matthew, Homily 40

“And when He left there, He went into their synagogue: and there was a man whose hand was withered.” Again He heals on a Sabbath day, defending what His disciples had done. The other evangelists say that He “placed” the man “in the middle,” and asked them “whether it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath days.” See the Lord’s tender compassion. “He placed him in the middle,” so that the sight might overcome them; so that, moved by what they saw, they might abandon their wickedness and, out of some sense of shame before the man, give up their savage ways. But they, harsh and inhuman, would rather damage Christ’s reputation than see this person healed. They reveal their wickedness in both ways: by fighting against Christ, and by fighting so bitterly that they even treat His mercies toward other people with contempt. While the other evangelists say that He asked the question, this one says that it was asked of Him. “And they asked Him,” the text reads, “saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days? so that they might accuse Him.” Both probably happened. For these ungodly wretches were certain that He would go ahead with the healing, so they hurried to get ahead of Him with their question, thinking they could stop Him this way. That is why they asked, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days?” They wanted no information, but an opportunity to “accuse Him.” Surely the deed itself was enough, if they really wanted to accuse Him. But they wanted to find something to use against Him in His words too, preparing plenty of arguments for themselves in advance. But in His love for humanity, He does this too: He answers them, teaching them His own gentleness, turning the whole matter back on them, and exposing their inhumanity. He “places” the man “in the middle,” because He wants to help them and move them to pity, without any fear of them. But when even this failed to persuade them, He was grieved, we are told, and angry with them for their hardness of heart, and He says, “What man among you who has one sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath days, will not take hold of it and lift it out? How much better, then, is a man than a sheep? So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath days.” With this example He proves them wrong, leaving them no grounds for stubborn resistance or for again accusing Him of breaking the law. Notice, please, how He presents different defenses for breaking the Sabbath, each suited to the case. First, in the blind man’s case, when He made the clay, He does not even defend Himself to them, although they were blaming Him then too. The way He created it was enough to reveal the Master of the law. Next, in the paralyzed man’s case, when the man carried his bed and they found fault, He defends Himself sometimes as God and sometimes as man. As man, He says, “If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath day so that the law will not be broken” (He did not say, “so that a man will benefit”), “are you angry with me because I have made a man completely well on the Sabbath day?” As God, again, He says, “My Father has been working until now, and I work.” But when they blamed Him for His disciples, He said, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, along with those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence?” He also brings up the priests. And here again: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? Which of you has one sheep?” For He knew their love of wealth: they were entirely absorbed in it, rather than in love for humanity. The other evangelist also says that He looked around at them as He asked these questions, so that His very gaze might win them over. But even this did not make them any better. And yet here He only speaks, while elsewhere He often heals by laying on His hands too. Nevertheless, none of these things made them gentle. Instead, while the man was healed, his restored health made them worse. For He wanted to cure them before curing him, and He tried countless ways of healing them, both through what He did in their presence and through what He said. But since their disease proved incurable after all, He went ahead with the deed. “Then He says to the man, Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other.” 2. What did they do then? They went out, we are told, and plotted together to kill Him. For “the Pharisees,” Scripture says, “went out and held a council against Him to decide how they might destroy Him.” He had done them no harm, yet they set about killing Him. Envy is so great an evil. It constantly wages war against our own people as well as against strangers. And Mark says that they plotted this with the Herodians. What, then, does the gentle and meek One do? When He learned of it, He withdrew. “But when Jesus knew their plans, He withdrew,” we are told, “from them.” Where now are those who say that miracles ought to be performed? Through these events He showed that a dishonest soul is not persuaded even by miracles, and He made it clear that they also blamed His disciples without cause. We should observe, however, that they become especially fierce when their neighbors receive benefits. When they see someone freed from either disease or wickedness, that is when they find fault and become wild beasts. This is how they slandered Him when He was about to save the prostitute, when He was eating with tax collectors, and now again when they saw the hand restored. But notice, please, how He continues His tender care for the sick while also calming their envy. “And great crowds followed Him, and He healed them all; and He instructed those who had been healed not to make Him known to anyone.” For although the crowds everywhere both admire and follow Him, these men do not give up their wickedness. Then, so that you will not be bewildered by what is happening and by their strange frenzy, he also introduces the prophet, who foretold all this. The prophets were so accurate that they did not omit even these things. They foretold His very journeys, His moves from place to place, and His purpose in making them, so that you might learn that everything they said came through the Spirit. For if no human skill can discover people’s secrets, it was even more impossible to learn Christ’s purpose unless the Spirit revealed it. What, then, does the prophet say? The text goes on: “So that what was spoken through Isaiah the Prophet might be fulfilled, saying, Look at my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon Him, and He will proclaim judgment to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not extinguish, until He sends judgment forth to victory. And in His name the Gentiles will trust.” The prophet celebrates His gentleness and His indescribable power, and opens to the Gentiles “a great and effective door.” He also foretells the evils that will overtake the Jews and indicates His complete agreement with the Father. For “look,” He says, “at my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased.” Now if He chose Him, Christ does not set aside the law as an adversary or as an enemy of the lawgiver, but as One who shares His mind and His aims. Then, proclaiming His gentleness, he says, “He will not quarrel or cry out.” For He wanted to heal in their presence, but when they drove Him away, He did not resist even this. And to indicate both His strength and their weakness, he says, “A bruised reed He will not break.” For He could easily have broken them all to pieces like a reed—and a reed already bruised at that. “And smoking flax He will not extinguish.” Here he presents both their blazing anger and His power to suppress that anger and extinguish it with complete ease. This shows His great gentleness. What then? Will things always be this way? Will He forever put up with them as they hatch such frantic plots against Him? Far from it. Once He has done His part, He will carry out His other purposes too. He declared this by saying, “Until He sends judgment forth to victory: and in His name the Gentiles will trust.” As Paul also says, “Ready to avenge all disobedience when your obedience is complete.” But what does “when He sends judgment forth to victory” mean? Once He has fully done His own part, we are told, He will also bring His vengeance down upon them—a complete vengeance. They will suffer His terrors when His trophy of victory has been gloriously raised, when the ordinances that come from Him have prevailed, and when He has left them no grounds for contradiction, however shameless they may be. For He often calls righteousness “judgment.” But His work will extend beyond punishing unbelievers: He will also win the whole world to Himself. That is why He added, “And in His name the Gentiles will trust.” Then, to let you know that this too accords with the Father’s purpose, the prophet had assured us of this at the beginning, along with what came before, saying, “My dearly loved One, in whom my soul is well pleased.” For it is quite clear that the dearly loved One did these things too according to the mind of the beloved. 3. “Then they brought Him someone possessed by a demon, blind and unable to speak, and He healed him, so that the man who was blind and unable to speak both spoke and saw.” Oh, the evil spirit’s wickedness! The evil spirit had blocked both entrances through which that person should have believed, sight as well as hearing. Nevertheless, Christ opened both. “And all the people were amazed, saying, Is not this the Son of David? But the Pharisees said, This fellow casts out demons only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons.” And yet what great thing had been said? Nevertheless, they could not bear even this. As I have already remarked, the good done to their neighbors always stings them to this degree, and nothing grieves them so much as people’s salvation. He had actually withdrawn and given their anger room to subside, but the evil flared up again because another benefit had been given. Even the evil spirit was less indignant than they were. The evil spirit left the body, gave way, and fled without a sound, while these men were now trying to kill Him, now to slander Him. When their first aim failed, they wanted to damage His good name. Such is envy, and no worse evil can exist. The adulterer does enjoy some pleasure, such as it is, and completes his particular sin in a short time. But the envious person punishes himself and takes vengeance on himself more than on the person he envies. He never stops sinning, but keeps committing it continually. As a sow delights in mud, and evil spirits in our harm, so he delights in his neighbor’s troubles. If something painful happens, he feels refreshed and can breathe again. He counts other people’s disasters as his own joys, and other people’s blessings as his own troubles. He does not consider what pleasure might come to himself, but what pain might come to his neighbor. Should such men, then, not be stoned and beaten to death, like mad dogs, like destroying demons, like the Furies themselves? For as beetles feed on dung, these men feed on other people’s disasters, making themselves common adversaries and enemies of our nature. While the rest of humanity pities even an animal being killed, do you become like a wild beast, tremble, and turn pale when you see a person receiving benefits? What could be worse than this madness? That is why, you see, sexually immoral men and tax collectors could enter the kingdom, while the envious, who were inside it, went out. For “the children of the kingdom,” it says, “will be thrown out.” The former, once freed from their existing wickedness, attained things they had never expected, while the latter lost even the good things they already had. And with good reason. For envy turns a person into a devil; it makes someone a savage demon. This is how the first murder arose; how the bonds of nature were forgotten; how the earth was defiled; how it later opened its mouth to swallow Dathan, Korah, Abiram, and that entire multitude alive and destroy them utterly. 4. But someone may say, “It is easy to denounce envy, but we should also consider how people can be freed from the disease.” How, then, can we rid ourselves of this wickedness? By remembering that just as someone who has committed sexual immorality cannot lawfully enter the church, neither can someone who envies. Indeed, the latter has even less right than the former. As things stand, envy is considered a matter of indifference, and so receives little thought. But if its true wickedness becomes clear, we should easily keep away from it. Weep, then, and groan; mourn and plead with God. Learn to feel remorse for it and repent of it as a serious sin. If you adopt this attitude, you will quickly be rid of the disease. “And who does not know,” someone may say, “that envy is evil?” No one is ignorant of that, certainly. Yet people do not judge this passion as they judge adultery and sexual immorality. When has anyone bitterly condemned himself for having envied? When has he pleaded with God about this plague, asking Him to have mercy on him? Never has anyone done so. But if he fasts and gives a little money to a poor person, then however extreme his envy, he thinks he has done nothing horrible, even while the most accursed passion of all holds him in its power. How, for example, did Cain become what he was? How did Esau? How did Laban’s children? How did Jacob’s sons? How did Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their company? How did Miriam? How did Aaron? How did the devil himself? Consider this too: you are not injuring the person you envy, but thrusting the sword into yourself. How did Cain injure Abel? Did he not, even against his own will, send him into the kingdom sooner? But he pierced himself through with countless evils. How did Esau harm Jacob? Did Jacob not grow wealthy and enjoy countless blessings, while Esau himself became an outcast from his father’s house and wandered in a foreign land after that plot of his? And how did Jacob’s sons make Joseph worse off, even though they went as far as bloodshed? Did they not have to endure famine and face extreme danger, while he became king of all Egypt? For the more you envy, the more you help secure greater blessings for the person you envy. There is a God who watches these things. When He sees someone who does no injury being injured, He raises that person even higher and makes him glorious, but punishes you. For if He does not let those who gloat over their enemies go unpunished (“Do not rejoice,” it says, “when your enemies fall, for fear that the Lord might see it and be displeased”), much less will He let those who envy people who have done no wrong go unpunished. Let us, then, root out this many-headed wild beast. For envy truly has many forms. If someone who loves a person who is his friend does no more than a tax collector, where will someone stand who hates a person who does him no wrong? How will he escape hell when he becomes worse than the pagans? This is also why I grieve so deeply that we, who are commanded to imitate the angels—or rather, the Lord of the angels—imitate the devil. For there is much envy even in the church, and more among us than among those under our authority. So we must direct this teaching to ourselves too. 5. Tell me, then, why do you envy your neighbor? Because you see him receiving honor and praise? Then do you not remember how much harm honors bring to those who are off guard? They lift them up into pride, a hunger for empty glory, arrogance, and contempt for others, making them more careless. Besides these evils, honors themselves quickly wither away. The worst thing is that the evils arising from them last forever, while the pleasure flies away the moment it appears. Are these, then, the things you envy? Tell me. “But he has great influence with the Ruler, directs and drives everything wherever he wants, hurts those who offend him, benefits his flatterers, and has great power.” These are the words of worldly people, of men fastened to the earth. Nothing will be able to hurt the spiritual man. For what serious harm can he do him? Vote him out of office? And what of that? If it is done justly, it even benefits him, for nothing provokes God so much as someone holding the priestly office unworthily. But if it is done unjustly, the blame falls on the other person, not on him. For someone who suffers injustice and bears it nobly gains greater confidence before God through it. Let us, then, aim to live in virtue and self-denial, rather than to gain positions of power, honor, and authority. Positions of authority do persuade people to do many things God does not approve of, and great strength of soul is needed to use authority rightly. Someone deprived of authority practices self-restraint, willingly or unwillingly. But someone who possesses it is in much the same position as a man who lives with a graceful and beautiful young woman and is given rules never to look at her lustfully. That is what authority is like. It has led many people to act insolently, even against their will. It awakens anger, removes the tongue’s bridle, and tears away the door of the lips. It fans the soul as a wind would, and sinks its ship into the deepest evils. Do you admire someone in such great danger, then, and say he should be envied? What madness this is! Besides what we have mentioned, consider how many enemies and accusers, and how many flatterers, surround and besiege this person. Are these, please tell me, reasons to call a man happy? Who could say so? “But the people,” you say, “think highly of him.” And what does that amount to? The people certainly are not God, to whom he must give an account. So when you name the people, you are speaking of nothing but more breakers, rocks, shoals, and submerged ridges. For the more popular favor makes someone prominent, the greater the dangers, cares, and discouragements it brings him. Such a person cannot even catch his breath or stand still, because he has so harsh a master. And why do I say, “stand still and catch his breath”? However many good works such a person has done, he barely enters the kingdom. For nothing so often brings people down as the honor that comes from the crowd, making them cowardly, dishonorable, flattering, and hypocritical. Why, for instance, did the Pharisees say that Christ was possessed? Was it not because they craved the crowd’s honor? And how did the crowd come to judge Him rightly? Was it not because this disease had no hold on them? For nothing, nothing does so much to make people lawless and foolish as craving the crowd’s honor. Nothing makes them glorious and steadfast like despising it. That is why someone who is to withstand such an impulse and so violent a blast needs great strength of soul. For just as he considers himself above everyone when things go well, when the opposite happens he wants to bury himself alive. Once this passion overwhelms him, this becomes both hell and the kingdom for him. Is all this, then, please tell me, a reason for envy, or rather for mourning and tears? Surely everyone can see. But when you envy someone held in that kind of esteem, you act like a person who sees someone bound, whipped, and torn by countless wild beasts, and envies his wounds and lash marks. For he has as many bonds and as many tyrants as there are people in the crowd. Even worse, each has a different mind. They all pass whatever judgment comes into their heads on the person enslaved to them, without examining anything. Whatever this or that person decides, the others endorse too. What waves, then, what storm could be so terrible as this? Such a person is puffed up in an instant by pleasure and just as easily plunged underwater again, always tossed about, never at peace. Before the assembly and the contests in speaking, anxiety and fear possess him. After the assembly, he is either dead with discouragement or, on the contrary, rejoices beyond measure—which is worse than sorrow. That this pleasure is no less an evil than sorrow is clear from its effect on the soul: how frivolous, unsteady, and fluttering it makes it. You can see this even in people of former times. When, for instance, was David admirable: when he rejoiced, or when he was in anguish? When were the Jewish people admirable: when they groaned and called on God, or when they reveled in the wilderness and worshiped the calf? That is why Solomon too, who knew better than anyone what pleasure is, says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of laughter.” That is also why Christ blesses the one group, saying, “Blessed are those who mourn,” but laments over the other, saying, “Woe to you who laugh, for you will weep.” And very rightly. For in pleasure the soul grows more lax and effeminate, but in mourning it is strengthened, grows sober, is freed from the whole swarm of passions, and becomes loftier and stronger. Knowing all these things, then, let us avoid the glory that comes from the crowd and the pleasure that springs from it, so that we may win the true and everlasting glory. May we all attain it through the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.