Homilies on Matthew, Homily 5

“Now all this happened so that what the Lord had spoken through the Prophet might be fulfilled: Look, a Virgin will be pregnant and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Emmanuel.” I hear many say, “While we are here, enjoying the privilege of listening, we are filled with awe, but when we leave, we become different people again, and the flame of zeal goes out.” What can we do to keep this from happening? Let us look at where it comes from. Where, then, does such a great change in us come from? From spending our time in unsuitable ways and keeping company with evil people. As soon as we leave the service, we should not plunge into business unsuited to the service. Instead, as soon as we get home, we should take our Bible in our hands and call our wives and children to join us in piecing together what we have heard. Then, and not before, we should attend to the business of life. For if you would not choose to hurry into the marketplace after a bath, for fear that the business there would undo the refreshment you had gained, we should act on this principle all the more after the service. But as it is, we do the opposite, and in this very way throw everything away. Before the benefit of what we have been told has taken firm hold, the powerful pressure of outside concerns sweeps it all away. To keep this from happening, when you leave the service, you must consider nothing more necessary than piecing together what you have been told. Yes, it would be utter foolishness to devote five or even six days to the business of this life and not give spiritual things even one day, or rather, even a small part of one day. Don't you see how our own children spend the whole day studying whatever lessons they are given? Let us do the same. Otherwise, we will gain nothing from coming here: we will be pouring water every day into a vessel full of holes, without making even as much effort to retain what we have heard as we plainly make over gold and silver. Anyone who receives a few small coins puts them in a bag and seals it. But although we have been given divine utterances more precious than gold or costly stones, and receive the treasures of the Spirit, we do not put them away in the storehouses of our soul. Instead, we carelessly let them slip from our minds. Who, then, will pity us after all this, when we plot against our own interests and cast ourselves into such deep poverty? To keep this from happening, let us set down an unchangeable rule for ourselves, our wives, and our children: devote this one whole day of the week to listening and recalling what we have heard. This way, we will approach what comes next better prepared to learn. Our work will be easier, and your benefit greater, when you remember what was recently said and listen to what follows in light of it. Knowing exactly how the thoughts we are weaving together for you connect also contributes greatly to understanding what is said. Since it is impossible to present everything in one day, you must keep remembering, joining what is set before you over many days into a kind of chain and wrapping it around your soul, so that the body of the Scriptures may appear whole. So let us recall what was recently said, and then go on to the subjects set before us today. 2. What, then, is set before us today? “Now all this happened so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying:” With a voice worthy of this wonder, he speaks with all his strength: “Now all this happened.” For he saw the sea and the abyss of God's love for humanity, the actual fulfillment of what no one had ever expected, the breaking of nature's laws, reconciliations made, Him who is above all coming down to the one who is lower than all, “the dividing walls in between broken down,” the obstacles removed, and many more things accomplished besides. So in a single statement he sets the miracle before us: “Now all this happened so that what the Lord had spoken might be fulfilled.” For he says, “Do not think these things have only now been decided; they were foreshadowed long ago.” Paul, too, works everywhere to prove this same point. The angel goes on to direct Joseph to Isaiah, so that even if, after waking, he should forget the angel's own words because they had only just been spoken, being reminded of the prophet's words, on which he had continually been nourished, might help him retain the substance of what the angel had said as well. He mentioned none of these things to the woman, since she was a young girl unfamiliar with them. But with the husband, a righteous man who studied the prophets, he reasons from their writings. Earlier he says, “Mary, your wife.” But now, after bringing the prophet before him, he trusts him with the term “virgin.” Joseph would not have remained so unshaken when he heard the angel speak of a virgin unless he had first heard it from Isaiah too. For what he was to hear from the prophet was nothing new, but something familiar to him, something he had reflected on for a long time. This is why the angel brings in Isaiah: to make his words easier to accept. Nor does he stop there; he connects his message with God. He does not call the saying Isaiah's, but the saying of the God of all things. That is why he did not say, “so that what Isaiah had spoken might be fulfilled,” but “what the Lord had spoken.” The mouth was Isaiah's, but the divine utterance was carried down from above. 3. What, then, does this divine utterance say? “Look, a virgin will be pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will call His name Emmanuel.” How is it, someone may ask, that His name was not Emmanuel, but Jesus Christ? Because he did not say, “you will call,” but “they will call,” meaning the multitude and the outcome of events. Here he presents the event as a name. Scripture commonly does this, substituting the events that happen for names. So saying that “they will call” Him “Emmanuel” means simply that they will see God among human beings. He has indeed always been among human beings, but never so visibly. But if Jews remain obstinate, we will ask them: When was the child called “Hurry to the loot, hurry to the prey”? They could not say. How is it, then, that the prophet said, “Call his name Hurry to the loot”? Because when he was born, loot was taken and divided, and so the event that happened in his time is used as his name. The city, too, it says, will be called “the city of righteousness, the faithful city Zion.” Yet we nowhere find that the city was called “righteousness”; it continued to be called Jerusalem. Still, because this actually happened when the city changed for the better, he says it is called by that name. For when an event identifies the person who brings it about, or the person who benefits from it, more clearly than his name does, Scripture speaks of the reality of the event as his name. 4. But if, after their mouths have been shut on this point, they look for another objection, concerning Mary's virginity, and cite other translators against us, saying that they used the term “young woman,” not “virgin,” our first reply will be that the Seventy rightly deserved greater trust than all the others. Those others made their translations after Christ's coming while continuing to be Jews, and may reasonably be suspected of having spoken out of hostility and deliberately obscured the prophecies. But the Seventy undertook this work a hundred years or more before Christ's coming and are free from all such suspicion. Because of their date, their number, and their agreement, they have a better claim to be trusted. But even if they bring forward the testimony of those others, the signs of victory would still be on our side. Scripture regularly uses the word “youth” for “virginity,” and does so for men as well as women. For it says, “young men and young women, old men with younger ones.” And again, speaking of the girl who is attacked, it says, “if the young woman cries out,” meaning the virgin. What comes before also establishes this interpretation. He does not simply say, “Look, the Virgin will be pregnant.” First he says, “Look, the Lord Himself will give you a sign,” and then adds, “Look, the Virgin will be pregnant.” But if the woman who was to give birth was not a virgin, and this happened through marriage, what kind of sign would the event be? A sign must, of course, go beyond the ordinary course of events; it must be strange and extraordinary. Otherwise, how could it be a sign? 5. “Then Joseph woke from sleep and did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him.” Do you see his obedience and submissive mind? Do you see a soul truly awake and incorruptible in every way? When he suspected something painful or wrong, he could not bear to keep the Virgin with him. And once he was freed from this suspicion, he could not bear to cast her out. Instead, he keeps her with him and serves the whole divine plan. “And he took Mary his wife to live with him.” Do you see how continually the evangelist uses this word, wishing to keep that mystery from being revealed yet and to wipe out that evil suspicion? After he had taken her in, “he did not have sexual relations with her until she had given birth to her firstborn Son.” He uses the word “until” here so that you will understand that before the birth the Virgin was completely untouched by man, not so that you will suspect that afterward he did have sexual relations with her. But why, someone may ask, did he use the word “until”? Because Scripture often does this, using the expression without referring to a limited period. So, in speaking of the ark, it also says, “The raven did not return until the earth had dried up.” Yet it did not return even after that time. And when speaking of God, Scripture says, “From age to age You are,” without setting limits in this case. Again, when it proclaims the Gospel beforehand and says, “In his days righteousness will flourish, and an abundance of peace, until the moon is taken away,” it does not set a limit to this beautiful part of creation. Here, too, it uses the word “until” to establish with certainty what happened before the birth, but leaves you to draw the inference about what follows. What you needed to learn from Him, He Himself has said: that the Virgin was untouched by man until the birth. But what was both seen to follow from that statement and acknowledged, he leaves you in turn to understand: that even afterward, once she had become a mother in this way and had been considered worthy of a new kind of labor and such a strange childbirth, that righteous man could never have brought himself to have sexual relations with her. For if he had had sexual relations with her and kept her as a wife, why does our Lord entrust her to His disciple as someone unprotected, with no one to care for her, and command him to take her into his own home? How, then, someone may ask, are James and the others called His brothers? In the same sort of way that Joseph himself was thought to be Mary's husband. Many veils were provided so that the birth, extraordinary as it was, might be concealed for a time. That is why even John called them this, saying, “For even His brothers did not believe in Him.” 6. Nevertheless, those who did not believe at first later became admirable and distinguished. At any rate, when Paul and his companions went up to Jerusalem about the decrees, they went straight to James. He was so admired that he was even the first to be entrusted with the bishop's office. They say he devoted himself to such severe austerity that all his limbs became as if dead, and that from his continual prayer and constant contact with the ground, his forehead became so calloused that it was no better than a camel's knees, simply from striking it against the earth so often. This man gives directions to Paul himself when he later comes up to Jerusalem again, saying, “You see, brother, how many thousands have come together.” So great were his understanding and zeal—or rather, so great was the power of Christ. Those who mocked Him while He was alive were so filled with awe after His death that they were even ready to die for Him with the greatest willingness. These things show the power of His resurrection more than anything else. This, you see, was why the more glorious things were kept until afterward: so that this proof might become indisputable. Even those we admire during their lives tend to be forgotten by us when they are gone. How, then, did those who thought little of this Man while He was alive later consider Him God, if He was only one among many? How did they agree even to be killed for His sake unless they accepted His resurrection on clear evidence? 7. We tell you these things so that you may do more than listen: you should also imitate his manly courage, his plain speaking, and his righteousness in everything. No one should despair of himself, even if he has been careless until now, or place his hopes in anything but his own virtue, after God's mercy. For if these men gained nothing from such a family relationship, though they belonged to the same household and lineage as Christ, until they gave proof of virtue, what favor can we possibly receive by appealing to righteous relatives and brothers unless we are exceptionally conscientious and have lived virtuously? The prophet, too, expressed this very point when he said, “A brother does not redeem; will a man redeem?” No, not even if it were Moses, Samuel, or Jeremiah. Listen, for example, to what God says to the last of these: “Do not pray for this people, for I will not hear you.” And why are you surprised that I do not hear you? “Even if Moses himself and Samuel stood before Me,” I would not accept their plea for these men. Yes, even if Ezekiel pleads, he will be told, “Even if Noah comes forward, and Job and Daniel, they will deliver neither sons nor daughters.” Even if the patriarch Abraham pleads for those whose disease is most incurable and who will not change, God will leave him and go His way, so as not to receive his cry on their behalf. Again, even if Samuel does this, He tells him, “Do not mourn for Saul.” Even if someone pleads for his own sister when it is inappropriate, he will receive the same kind of answer as Moses: “If her father had only spit in her face.” So let us not look to others with our mouths hanging open. The prayers of the saints do indeed have the greatest power, provided, however, that we repent and change for the better. Even Moses, who had rescued his own brother and six hundred thousand men from the anger God was then about to unleash on them, had no power to deliver his sister. Yet the sins were not equal: she had only insulted Moses, while in the other case what they dared to do was outright impiety. But I leave this difficulty to you, while I try to explain something even harder. Why speak of his sister? The man who pleaded on behalf of such a great people could not win a favorable answer for himself. After his countless labors and sufferings and his tireless efforts for forty years, he was forbidden to set foot in that land about which so many declarations and promises had been made. What, then, was the reason? Granting this favor would have done no good; on the contrary, it would have caused great harm and would certainly have become a stumbling block to many of the Jews. For if, when they had merely been delivered from Egypt, they abandoned God, sought after Moses, and attributed everything to him, how far into impiety might they have fallen if they had also seen him lead them into the promised land? And for this reason, let me add, the location of his tomb was not made known either. Again, Samuel could not save Saul from the anger from above, yet he often preserved the Israelites. Jeremiah did not prevail for the Jews, though perhaps he did shield someone else from evil through his prophecy. And Daniel saved the barbarians from slaughter, but did not deliver the Jews from captivity. In the Gospels, too, we will see both outcomes, in the same people rather than different ones: the same man at one time prevails for himself and at another is abandoned. The man who owed ten thousand talents escaped danger by pleading, yet later his plea did not prevail. Another man, on the contrary, who had previously ruined himself, afterward had the power to help himself to the greatest degree. Who was this? The man who devoured his Father's property. So, on the one hand, if we are careless, we will not be able to obtain salvation, even with the help of others. On the other hand, if we are watchful, we will be able to obtain it ourselves, and more readily by ourselves than through others. Yes, for God is more willing to give His grace to us than to others on our behalf, so that by making our own efforts to turn away His anger, we may both approach Him with confidence and become better people. This is how He had pity on the Canaanite woman, how He saved the prostitute, and how He saved the thief, when there was no one to mediate or plead for them. 8. I say this so that we may avoid becoming careless and entrusting our concerns entirely to others while we ourselves fall back and sleep, not so that we may stop pleading with the saints. For when He said, “make friends for yourselves,” He did not stop there, but added, “with unrighteous mammon,” so that the good work may again be your own. For what He means here is simply giving alms. And what is remarkable is that He does not even demand a strict accounting from us if we turn away from injustice. What He says amounts to this: “Have you gained dishonestly? Spend well. Have you gathered through unrighteousness? Scatter what you have gathered in righteousness.” And yet, what kind of virtue is it to give from such gains? Still, God, full of love for humanity, stoops even to accept this, and promises us many good things if we do it. But we are so completely unfeeling that we do not give even from our unjust gains. While we plunder endlessly, if we contribute the smallest part, we think we have done everything. Haven't you heard Paul say, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly”? Why, then, do you hold back? What, is this an outlay? Is it an expense? No, it is gain and profitable trade. Where there is trade, there is also increase; where there is sowing, there is also reaping. If you had to cultivate rich, deep soil capable of receiving much seed, you would spend what you had and borrow from others as well, considering stinginess in such circumstances a loss. But when it is Heaven you are to cultivate, which is subject to no changes in the weather and will certainly repay your outlay with abundant increase, you are slow and reluctant. You do not consider that you can lose by holding back and gain by giving freely. 9. Scatter, then, so that you may not lose; do not keep, so that you may keep; pay out, so that you may save; spend, so that you may gain. If your treasures are to be stored up, do not store them up yourself, for you will certainly throw them away. Entrust them to God, for no one can steal them there. Do not trade on your own, for you have no idea how to make a profit. Instead, lend to Him who pays interest greater than the principal. Lend where there is no envy, accusation, evil scheme, or fear. Lend to Him who lacks nothing, yet is in need for your sake; who feeds everyone, yet is hungry so that you may not suffer famine; who is poor so that you may be rich. Lend where your return cannot be death, but life instead of death. For lending at interest to Him heralds a kingdom, while worldly lending at interest heralds hell; worldly lending comes from greed, lending to Him from self-denial; worldly lending comes from cruelty, lending to Him from kindness toward humanity. What excuse will we have, then, when we can receive more, securely, at the proper time, and with great freedom, without reproaches, fears, or dangers, yet let these gains go and pursue those other gains, base and vile as they are, insecure and perishable, making the furnace far fiercer for us? For nothing, nothing is more degrading than this world's lending at interest, nothing more cruel. Such a man trades in other people's calamities. He profits from another's distress and demands payment for kindness, as though afraid of appearing merciful. Under the cloak of kindness he digs the pitfall deeper, aggravating a man's poverty by the very act of helping him, pushing him down in the very act of stretching out his hand, and, while welcoming him as though into a harbor, wrecking him on a rock, shoal, or reef. “But what do you require?” someone says. “That I give someone else the use of the money I have gathered, money that is useful to me, and ask for no return?” Far from it. That is not what I say. Indeed, I earnestly want you to receive a return, a far greater one rather than a poor or small one. In exchange for gold, I want you to receive Heaven as interest. Why, then, shut yourself up in poverty, crawling along the earth and demanding little in return for much? This is the behavior of someone who does not know how to be rich. For when God promises you the good things in Heaven in return for a little money, and you say, “Do not give me Heaven; instead of Heaven, give me gold that perishes,” you act like someone who wants to remain poor. Surely anyone who desires wealth and abundance will choose lasting things over perishable things, the inexhaustible over what wastes away, much over little, the incorruptible over the corruptible. For in this way the other kind of goods will follow too. Just as someone who seeks earth before Heaven will certainly lose earth as well, so someone who prefers Heaven to earth will enjoy both in the fullest measure. So that this may be true of us, let us despise all things here and choose the good things to come. In this way we will obtain both the one and the other, through the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.