Homilies on Matthew, Homily 51

“Then Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, Why do Your disciples,” etc. Then—when? When He had performed His countless miracles; when He had healed the sick through the touch of the hem of His garment. The evangelist marks the time for this very purpose: to show their unspeakable wickedness, which nothing could restrain. But what does “the Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem” mean? They were scattered throughout all the tribes and divided into twelve groups; but those who lived in the chief city were worse than the others, since they enjoyed greater honor and had grown very arrogant. But notice, please, how their very question convicts them: they do not say, “Why do they break the law of Moses?” but “the tradition of the elders.” This makes it clear that the priests were inventing many new rules, although Moses had commanded them, with terrifying warnings and severe threats, neither to add nor to take anything away. “For you must not add,” he says, “to the word I command you today, and you must not take anything away from it.” Still, they kept introducing new rules: for example, that people must not eat with unwashed hands, that we must wash cups and bronze vessels, and that we must also wash ourselves. Thus, as time went on and people were about to be freed from these observances, at that very time they bound them to more and more of them. They feared that someone might take away their power and wanted to inspire greater fear, as though they too were lawgivers. In fact, this abuse went so far that while their own commandments were kept, God's were broken. They gained such control that this had actually become grounds for an accusation. This brought a double charge against them: they both invented new rules and demanded strict compliance with their own requirements, while paying no attention to God. Passing over the other things—the pots and bronze vessels, since that was too ridiculous—they bring forward what seemed more reasonable than the rest, wishing, at least as it seems to me, to provoke Him to anger this way. That is also why they mentioned the elders: so that, by treating them with contempt, He might give them grounds to accuse Him. But first we should ask why the disciples ate with unwashed hands. Why, then, did they eat this way? They were not making a point of it, but were now disregarding unnecessary things and attending to what was necessary. They had no rule requiring them either to wash or not to wash, but did one or the other as circumstances happened to dictate. For men who disregarded even their own necessary food, how could these things seem worth much attention? This had often happened unintentionally—for example, when they ate in the wilderness or plucked the heads of grain. Now these people bring it forward as an accusation, though they are always breaking the rules in great matters and making much of unnecessary things. 2. What, then, does Christ say? He did not argue against it or offer a defense, but immediately accused them in return, breaking down their confidence and showing that someone who commits great sins ought not to be strict with others about small matters. “What?” He says. “When you deserve blame yourselves, do you actually blame others?” But notice how, when He wishes to set aside any requirement of the law, He does it in the form of a defense; and that is what He did here. He certainly does not immediately proceed to break it, nor does He say, “It is nothing,” since that would surely have made them bolder. Instead, He first cuts away their boldness completely, bringing forward a far more serious charge and directing it against them. He neither says, “They do well to break it,” which would give them something to use against Him, nor criticizes their conduct, which would confirm the law. Nor, on the other hand, does He accuse the elders of being lawless and unholy men, since they would undoubtedly have shunned Him as abusive and insulting. He leaves all these approaches aside and takes another way. He seems to be rebuking the people who had come to Him, but He is censuring those who enacted these laws. He never mentions the elders, yet His charge against the Scribes brings them down too, showing that their sin is twofold: first, they disobey God; second, they do so for the sake of men. It is as though He had said, “Why, this—this is what has ruined you: obeying the elders in everything.” Yet He does not say that outright; this is precisely what He implies when He answers them as follows: “Why do you also break God's commandment because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honor your father and your mother; and, Whoever curses father or mother must be put to death. But you say, Whoever says to his father or his mother, Whatever benefit you might have received from me is a gift, and does not honor his father or his mother—And you have nullified God's commandment by your tradition.” He did not say “the elders' tradition,” but “your own.” And again, He said “you say,” not “the elders say,” to make His words less painful. That is, because they wanted to prove that the disciples were breaking the law, He shows that they themselves are doing so, while the disciples are free from blame. For of course a requirement imposed by men is not a law—which is why He also calls it “a tradition”—especially when those men are themselves lawbreakers. Since commanding people to wash their hands was in no way contrary to the law, He brings forward another tradition that does oppose the law. What He says amounts to this: “Under the guise of piety, they taught young people to despise their fathers.” How, and in what way? “If a parent said to his child, Give me this sheep you have, or this calf, or something of that kind, they would say, ‘This, from which you might have benefited through me, is a gift to God, and you cannot have it.’ Two evils resulted: on the one hand, they did not bring these things to God; on the other, they cheated their parents under the name of an offering, insulting their parents for God's sake and God for their parents' sake alike.” But He does not say this immediately. First He repeats the law, showing His earnest desire that parents should be honored. For He says, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long on the earth.” And again, “Whoever curses father or mother must be put to death.” But He leaves out the first part, the reward appointed for those who honor their parents, and states the more frightening part: the punishment threatened against those who dishonor them. He wants both to alarm them and to win over those who have understanding, and He implies that this makes them deserving of death. For if someone who dishonors them in words is punished, you deserve punishment all the more, since you dishonor them in deeds and not only do it yourselves but teach others to do it too. “You, then, who do not even deserve to live—how can you find fault with the disciples?” “And why should it be surprising if you insult me like this, when I am still unknown to you, when you are found doing the same even to the Father?” For everywhere He both states and implies that this arrogance of theirs began with their treatment of the Father. But some interpret “Whatever benefit you might have received from me is a gift” differently: that is, I owe you no honor; if I do honor you, it is a free gift from me to you. But Christ would not have mentioned an insult of that kind. And Mark makes this clearer by saying, “Whatever benefit you might have received from me is Corban,” which does not mean a gift or present, but specifically an offering. Having shown that those who trampled on the law had no just claim to blame people for breaking a command of certain elders, He makes the same point again from the prophet as well. Having once taken them severely to task, He goes further, as He always does, bringing forward the Scriptures and thus proving that He is in agreement with God. And what does the prophet say? “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching human commandments as doctrines.” Do you see a prophecy that agrees exactly with His words and announces their wickedness beforehand, from the very beginning? For what Christ now charged them with, Isaiah had also spoken of from the beginning: they despise God's words, for He says, “They worship me in vain”; but they place great value on their own, “teaching,” He says, “human commandments as doctrines.” So the disciples are right not to keep them. 3. You see, He has dealt them a mortal blow and made the charge more serious, first from the facts, then from their own judgment, then from the prophet. Now He no longer speaks to them at all, since they have become beyond correction, but addresses the crowds, to introduce His teaching, which is great, lofty, and very demanding. Taking His starting point from the previous subject, He goes on to bring in something greater, also abolishing the dietary observances. But notice when He does this. When He had cleansed the leper, when He had repealed the Sabbath, when He had shown Himself King of earth and sea, when He had made laws, when He had forgiven sins, when He had raised the dead, when He had given them many proofs of His Godhead—then He speaks about foods. For the whole religion of the Jews is contained in this: if you take this away, you have taken everything away. By this He shows that circumcision too must be abolished. But He does not bring this prominently forward Himself, since it was older than the other commandments and held in higher esteem; instead, He enacts it through His disciples. It was so momentous a matter that even the disciples, when they intended to abolish it after so much time had passed, first practiced it and then abolished it. But notice how He introduces His law: how “He called the crowd and said to them, Listen and understand.” He certainly does not simply reveal it to them. First, through respect and courtesy, He makes His words welcome—for this is what the evangelist conveys by saying, “He called them to Him.” Second, He does so through His timing: after their refutation, His victory over them, and the prophet's accusation, He begins to lay down His law, when the people too would accept His words more readily. He does not merely call them to Him; He also makes them pay closer attention. For He says, “Understand,” meaning, “Think; wake yourselves up, for that is the kind of law now about to be enacted. For if they set aside the law, even at the wrong time, for their own tradition, and you listened, much more should you listen to me, who at the proper time am leading you to a higher standard of self-restraint.” He did not say, “Dietary observances are nothing,” or that Moses had given wrong commands, or that He had given them to accommodate their weakness. Instead, by warning and counsel, and drawing His evidence from the nature of the things themselves, He says, “What goes into the mouth does not defile a person, but what comes out of the mouth.” He appeals to nature herself both in laying down His law and in proving His point. Yet when they heard all this, they made no reply. They did not say, “What are You saying? When God has given countless commands about dietary observances, do You make laws like this?” But He had completely silenced them, not only by refuting them, but also by making their cunning public, exposing their secret actions, and revealing the secrets of their minds. Their mouths were shut, and so they went away. But notice, please, how He does not yet venture to oppose the food restrictions openly and explicitly. That is why He did not say “foods,” but “what goes in does not defile a person,” which they would naturally suspect applied to unwashed hands as well. He was speaking about foods, but His words would be understood to include these matters too. Indeed, the religious misgivings about foods were so strong that even after the resurrection Peter said, “No, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” Although he said this for the sake of others, and to give himself a defense against his critics by showing that he had actually protested and still had not been excused, it nevertheless shows how deeply this had been impressed on them. That is why, as you see, He Himself did not speak openly about foods at the beginning either, but said, “What goes into the mouth.” And again, when afterward He seemed to speak more plainly, He veiled it with His conclusion: “But eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person.” In this way He could seem to have taken His starting point from that and to be continuing on the same subject. So He did not say, “Eating foods does not defile a person,” but spoke as though He were discussing that other subject, so that they would have nothing to say against it. 4. When they heard these things, it says, “the Pharisees were offended,” not the crowds. For it says, “His disciples came and said to Him, Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard that saying?” Yet surely nothing had been said to them. What, then, does Christ say? He did not remove the cause of their offense, but rebuked them, saying, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” For He sometimes disregards offenses and sometimes does not. Elsewhere, for example, He says, “But so that we do not offend them, cast a hook into the sea.” Here, however, He says, “Leave them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.” His disciples said these things not only because they were distressed for those men, but also because they themselves were somewhat troubled. But since they did not dare say so on their own behalf, they hoped to learn by telling Him about others. To see that this was so, hear how afterward Peter, passionate and always ready to take the lead, came to Him and said, “Explain this parable to us.” He revealed the trouble in his soul, without daring to say openly, “I am offended,” but asking to be freed from his confusion through His explanation. That is also why he was rebuked. What, then, does Christ say? “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” Those infected with the Manichaean plague claim that this was said about the law, but what was said earlier silences them. For if He was speaking about the law, how could He defend it and fight for it earlier, saying, “Why do you break God's commandments for the sake of your tradition?” And how could He bring forward the prophet? Rather, He speaks this way about them and their traditions. For if God said, “Honor your father and your mother,” how can something spoken by God fail to be God's planting? What follows also shows that this was said about them and their traditions. Thus He added, “They are blind guides of the blind.” If He had been speaking about the law, He would have said, “It is a blind guide of the blind.” But that is not what He said. He said, “They are blind guides of the blind,” freeing the law from blame and turning all of it back on them. Then, to separate the people from them too, since they were about to fall into a pit through them, He says, “If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.” Merely being blind is a great evil; but being in that condition and having no one to lead you—indeed, taking the place of a guide—is grounds for double and triple blame. For if it is dangerous for a blind man to have no guide, it is much more dangerous for him even to want to guide someone else. What, then, does Peter say? He does not say, “What can this thing You have said mean?” Instead, he asks his question as though the saying were very obscure. And he does not say, “Why have You spoken against the law?” He was afraid he might be thought to have taken offense, so he presents it as obscure. Yet it is clear that it was not obscure, but that he was offended, for there was nothing obscure about it. That is why He also rebukes him, saying, “Are you too still without understanding?” Perhaps the crowd did not even understand the saying, but the disciples themselves were the ones offended. At first, then, they wanted an explanation, as though asking on behalf of the Pharisees. But when they heard Him pronounce a great threat and say, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted,” and, “They are blind guides of the blind,” they fell silent. Yet Peter, always passionate, cannot bear to remain silent even then, but says, “Explain this parable to us.” What, then, does Christ say? He answers with a sharp rebuke: “Are you too still without understanding? Do you still not understand?” He said these things and rebuked them to drive out their prejudice. Yet He did not stop there, but added other things too, saying, “Whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is discharged into the latrine; but what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and that defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, blasphemies, false testimonies. These are the things that defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person.” Do you see how sharply He deals with them, and how He rebukes them? Then He supports His statement by appealing to our shared human nature, aiming to cure them. For when He says, “It goes into the stomach and is discharged into the latrine,” He is still answering according to the Jews' limited understanding. He says, “It does not remain, but goes out.” And what if it did remain? It would not make a person unclean. But they were not yet able to hear this. We can also see that this is why the lawgiver allows the uncleanness to last only as long as the food may remain inside a person, and no longer once it has passed out. For example, He tells you to wash yourself in the evening and so be clean, measuring the time needed for digestion and excretion. But the things of the heart, He says, remain within, and when they come out they defile, not only while they remain inside. He puts our evil thoughts first, a kind of thing that characterized the Jews. He does not yet base His refutation on the nature of the things themselves, but on how they come from the stomach and the heart respectively, and on the fact that one kind remains and the other does not: one enters from outside and passes out again, while the others arise within and defile when they come out—indeed, even more when they come out. For, as I said, they were not yet able to be taught these things with complete precision. But Mark says that He said this while “cleansing the foods.” Yet He did not state it explicitly or say at all, “Eating such and such foods does not defile a person,” for they could not bear to hear Him tell them this so plainly. Accordingly, His conclusion was, “But eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person.” 5. Let us learn, then, what things defile a person; let us learn and flee them. For even in the church we see this habit prevailing among most people: they take care to come in clean clothes and to have their hands washed, but give no thought to presenting a clean soul to God. I say this not to forbid them to wash their hands or mouths, but because I want people to wash as they should, not only with water, but with every virtue in place of water. For the filth of the mouth is evil speech, blasphemy, abuse, angry words, filthy talk, laughter, joking. If, then, you know that you have said none of these things and have not been defiled by this filth, approach with confidence. But if you have been stained by them countless times, why do you work so hard for nothing, washing your tongue with water while carrying such deadly and harmful filth on it? Tell me, if you had dung and mud on your hands, would you dare to pray? Certainly not. Yet this would do no harm, while that brings ruin. How, then, can you be reverent about indifferent things but careless about forbidden ones? “What, then? Should we not pray?” someone asks. We certainly should, but not while defiled and covered with mud of that kind. “What, then, if I have been caught in this?” someone asks. Cleanse yourself. “How, and in what way?” Weep, groan, give to those in need, apologize to the person you have insulted, and in this way reconcile him to yourself. Wipe your tongue clean, so that you do not provoke God even more severely. For if someone had covered his hands with dung and then grasped your feet to plead with you, far from listening to him, you would instead kick him away. How, then, do you dare approach God in that condition? For the tongue truly is the hand of those who pray, and with it we grasp God's knees. So do not defile it, or He may say to you too, “Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen.” Yes, and “death and life are in the power of the tongue”; and, “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” I urge you, then, to guard your tongue more carefully than the pupil of your eye. The tongue is a royal horse. If you put a bridle on it and teach it to move in good order, the King will rest and take His seat on it. But if you let it rush about unbridled and leap wildly, it becomes a beast for the devil and evil spirits to ride. You do not dare pray just after having sex with your own wife, although there is no blame at all in this. Yet do you raise your hands just after abuse and insults, which bring nothing less than hell, before you have thoroughly cleansed yourself? And how do you not shudder? Tell me. Have you not heard Paul saying, “Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled”? But if you do not dare approach in prayer after rising from the undefiled bed, how can you come from the devil's bed and call on that awesome and terrifying name? For wallowing in insults and abuse truly is the devil's bed. Like some wicked adulterer, anger takes great delight in making love to us, planting deadly seed in us, making us give birth to devilish hostility, and doing everything in the opposite way from marriage. For while marriage makes the two become one flesh, anger splits those who were united into many parts, and splits and cuts the very soul to pieces. So, to approach God with confidence, do not welcome anger when it comes upon you and wants to be with you, but drive it away like a mad dog. For Paul too commanded this, saying, “Raising holy hands without anger and arguing.” So do not dishonor your tongue, for how will it plead for you when it has lost the confidence it ought to have? Instead, adorn it with gentleness and humility. Make it worthy of the God with whom it pleads; fill it with blessing and generous giving to those in need. For it is possible to give to those in need even with words. “For a word is better than a gift,” and, “Answer the poor man peacefully and gently.” And throughout the rest of your time, adorn it by repeating God's laws: “Yes, let everything you say concern the law of the Most High.” Having adorned ourselves this way, let us come to our King and fall at His knees, not only in body but also in mind. Let us consider whom we are approaching, on whose behalf, and what we want to accomplish. We are approaching God, whom the seraphim look at and then turn their faces away, unable to bear His brightness; at the sight of Him the earth trembles. We approach God, “who dwells in light that no one can approach.” And we approach Him for deliverance from hell, forgiveness of sins, escape from those intolerable punishments, and admission to the Heavens and the good things there. Let us, I say, fall before Him in both body and mind, so that He may raise us when we are down; let us speak with all gentleness and meekness. “And who is so wretched and miserable,” someone may ask, “that he does not become gentle in prayer?” Someone who prays with a curse, fills himself with anger, and cries out against his enemies. 6. No, if you want to accuse someone, accuse yourself. If you want to hone and sharpen your tongue, let it be against your own sins. Do not tell what evil someone else has done to you, but what you have done to yourself, for this is what is most truly evil. No one else can really injure you unless you injure yourself. So if you want to bring a case against those who wrong you, first approach as an accuser of yourself. No one will stop you, since by coming into court against someone else, you only leave with a greater injury. And what injury can you really mention? That someone insulted you, robbed you by violence, and surrounded you with dangers? No, this is not receiving an injury, but, if we keep our senses, the greatest benefit. The injured person is the one who did these things, not the one who suffered them. More than anything else, this causes all our evils: we do not even know who is injured and who does the injury. If we understood this well, we would never injure ourselves or pray against someone else, having learned that it is impossible to suffer harm from another. For the evil is robbing, not being robbed. So if you have robbed someone, accuse yourself; but if you have been robbed, pray instead for the person who robbed you, because he has done you the greatest good. Although that was not his intention, you have received the greatest benefit if you have endured it nobly. For both people and God's laws declare him wretched, but crown you, the injured party, and proclaim your praise. For if someone sick with a fever violently took a vessel of water from someone else and fully satisfied his harmful desire, we would not say that the person robbed had been injured, but the robber, for he has intensified his fever and made his illness worse. Now I urge you to reason in the same way about someone who loves wealth and money. For he too, suffering from a far worse fever than the other man, has fanned the flame within himself through this robbery. Again, if a madman snatched a sword from someone and killed himself, which one, again, is injured? The person robbed or the robber? Clearly, the one who committed the robbery. Well then, let us make the same judgment about seizing property. For wealth is much the same thing to a greedy man as a sword is to a madman—indeed, it is even worse. For when the madman takes the sword and runs himself through, he is both freed from his madness and has no second blow to suffer. But the lover of money receives ten thousand wounds each day, more severe than the madman's, without freeing himself from his madness; instead, he makes it far worse. And the more wounds he receives, the more he opens the way for still more severe blows. Thinking about these things, then, let us flee this sword; let us flee this madness. Even at this late stage, let us practice self-control. For this virtue too deserves to be called self-control, no less than what everyone usually calls by that name. In that case we must struggle against the rule of one lust; here we must master many lusts, of every kind. Yes, nothing, nothing is more foolish than the slave of wealth. He thinks he is conquering when he is being conquered. He thinks he is master when he is a slave, and he rejoices as he puts chains on himself. He is pleased as he makes the wild beast fiercer; he takes pride and leaps for joy as he becomes a captive. And when he sees a rabid dog flying at his soul, instead of binding it and weakening it with hunger, he actually supplies it with abundant food, so that it may leap at him more fiercely and become more fearsome. Thinking about all these things, then, let us loosen the chains; let us kill the monster; let us drive away the disease; let us cast out this madness. Then we may enjoy calm and pure health and, having sailed with great pleasure into the peaceful harbor, attain the eternal blessings. May we all attain them through the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.