Homilies on Matthew, Homily 81

“Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover? And He said, Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, The Master says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.” By the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, he means the day before that feast; for they always count the day from the evening, and he mentions the day on whose evening the Passover must be killed. For they came to Him on the fifth day of the week. And this writer calls it the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread, speaking of the time when they came to Him, while another says, “Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed.” By “came,” he means that it was near, right at the door, clearly referring to that evening. For they began with the evening, which is also why each adds, when the Passover was killed. And they say, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?” Even this makes it clear that He had no house, no place to stay; and I suppose neither did they. Otherwise, they would surely have urged Him to come there. But they had none either, having now given up everything. But why did He keep the Passover? To show in everything, right up to the last day, that He is not opposed to the law. And why would He send them to someone they did not know? To show by this too that He could have avoided suffering. For He who moved this man to receive them, simply through words—what could He not have done with those who crucified Him, if He had wished not to suffer? And what He did with the donkey, He did here too. For there too He says, “If anyone says anything to you, you are to say that the Lord needs them”; and likewise here, “The Master says, I will keep the Passover at your house.” But I marvel not only that the man received Him without knowing Him, but that, expecting to bring such hatred and relentless hostility on himself, he disregarded the crowd’s hatred. After this, because they did not know him, He gave them a sign, just as the prophet did concerning Saul, saying, “You will find someone going up and carrying a flask”; and here, “carrying a pitcher.” And see again the display of His power. For He did not merely say, “I will keep the Passover,” but also added, “My time is near.” He did this both to keep reminding His disciples of the passion, so that hearing the prediction repeatedly would train them to be ready for what was coming, and to show them, the man receiving Him, and all the Jews what I have often mentioned: that He does not come to His passion against His will. And He adds, “with My disciples,” so that enough would be prepared and the man would not suppose that He was hiding. “Now when evening came, He sat down with the twelve disciples.” Oh, the shamelessness of Judas! For he too was there, and came to share both in the mysteries and in the meal, and was exposed at the very table, where he would have become tame even if he had been a wild beast. This is why the evangelist also points out that Christ speaks of His betrayal while they are eating: both the timing and the table reveal the traitor’s wickedness. For when the disciples had done as Jesus directed them, “when evening came, He sat down with the twelve. And as they were eating, He said,” we are told, “Truly, I tell you, one of you will betray Me.” And before supper, He had even washed his feet. See how He spares the traitor. For He did not say, this particular man will betray Me, but “one of you,” concealing his identity to give him another opportunity to repent. And He chooses to alarm them all in order to save this man. One of you twelve, He says, who are with Me everywhere, whose feet I washed, to whom I promised so many things. Unbearable sorrow then seized that holy company. John says that they “were uncertain and looked at one another,” and each fearfully asked about himself, although none was conscious of any such intention. But this evangelist says that, “being deeply sorrowful, each of them began to say to Him, Am I the one, Lord? And He answered and said, It is the one to whom I will give a piece of bread after dipping it.” Notice when He revealed him. It was when He wished to free the others from this distress, for they were nearly dead with fear, which is why they kept pressing Him with questions. But He did this not only to relieve their distress, but also to reform the traitor. For although he had often heard these general warnings, he remained beyond correction, having lost all feeling. Wishing to make him feel it more deeply, He takes off his mask. For when, in their sorrow, they began to say, “Am I the one, Lord?” He answered, “The one who dips with Me in the dish will betray Me. The Son of Man goes, as it is written of Him, but woe to the man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” Now some say that he was so brazen that he showed no respect for his Master, but dipped with Him. But it seems to me that Christ did this too, to shame him still more and bring him to a better frame of mind. For this act, too, adds something more. 2. We should not pass over these things carelessly. They should be fixed in our minds, and then anger would never find a place. For who, remembering that supper, the traitor eating with the Savior of all, and the One about to be betrayed reasoning with him so gently, would not put away all the venom of anger and rage? Just see how gently He treats him: “The Son of Man goes, as it is written of Him.” Again, He said these things both to reassure the disciples, so that they would not think this was a sign of weakness, and to reform the traitor. “But woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” See again His indescribable gentleness even in His rebukes. For even here He speaks without abuse, expressing compassion instead, and again without naming him. Yet not only his earlier senselessness but also his later shamelessness deserved the greatest indignation. For after being exposed, he says, “Am I the one, Lord?” Oh, his lack of feeling! He asks this while fully aware of what he has done. The evangelist too records this in amazement at his audacity. What, then, does Jesus, so mild and gentle, say? “You have said it.” And yet He could have said, You unholy, utterly unholy man, accursed and profane, so long laboring to bring evil to birth, you went away and made satanic agreements, agreed to take money, and have even been exposed by Me—do you still dare to ask? But He said none of this. What did He say? “You have said it?” In this way He sets limits and rules for our patience. But someone will say, If it was written that He would suffer these things, why is Judas blamed? He did what was written. But he did it from wickedness, not with that intention. For if you do not examine the motive, you will clear even the devil of the charges against him. But that is not, that is not how things stand. Both of them deserve countless punishments, even though the world was saved. For Judas’s treachery did not accomplish our salvation. Christ’s wisdom did, and the good design of His skillful work, using the wickedness of others for our benefit. “What then,” someone may say, “if Judas had not betrayed Him, wouldn’t someone else have betrayed Him?” And what does this have to do with the question? “Because if Christ had to be crucified, it had to happen through someone, and if through someone, surely through someone like this. But if everyone had been good, the saving plan on our behalf would have been obstructed.” Not so. For the All-wise knows how to bring about what benefits us, even if that had happened. His wisdom has abundant means at its disposal and is beyond our understanding. So, to keep anyone from supposing that Judas had become a servant of the saving plan, He declares the man’s misery. But someone will say again, “And if it would have been good for him never to have been born, why did He allow this man and all the wicked to come into the world?” You should blame the wicked, because they became wicked when they had the power not to. Instead, you leave that aside, busy yourself with questions about God’s affairs, and pry into them, even though you know that no one is wicked by necessity. “Only the good should be born,” he would say, “and there would be no need for hell, punishment, vengeance, or any trace of vice. The wicked should either never be born at all or die as soon as they are born.” First, then, it would be good to repeat the apostle’s words to you: “But who are you, a human being, to answer back to God? Will the thing formed say to Him who formed it, Why have You made me like this?” But if you still demand reasons, we would say that the good are more admired for living among the bad, because that is when their patience and great self-control are most clearly shown. But by saying these things, you take away the opportunity for their wrestling and struggles. “What then? Are others punished so that these people can appear good?” he says. Absolutely not! They are punished for their own wickedness. For they did not become wicked because they were brought into the world, but because of their own wickedness; that is also why they are punished. How could they fail to deserve punishment, when they have so many teachers of virtue and gain nothing from them? For just as noble and good people deserve double honor because they both became good and suffered no harm from the wicked, so worthless people deserve double punishment: both because they became wicked when they could have become good (those who have become good prove this), and because they gained nothing from the good. But let us see what this miserable man says when his Master exposes him. What does he say? “Am I the one, Rabbi?” And why did he not ask this from the beginning? He thought he could escape detection when He said, “one of you.” But when He had identified him, he dared to ask again, trusting his Master’s gentleness to keep Him from exposing him. This, then, is also why he calls Him “Rabbi.” 3. Oh, blindness! Where has it led him? Such is greed: it makes people foolish and senseless, yes, reckless, turning them from people into dogs—or rather, even fiercer than dogs—and from dogs into demons. This man welcomed the devil even while the devil was plotting against him, but betrayed Jesus even while Jesus was doing him good, having already become a devil in his will. For this is what the insatiable desire for gain does to people: it drives them out of their minds, strikes them with frenzy, and gives them over entirely to gain, just as happened to Judas. But how is it that Matthew and the other evangelists say the devil seized him when he made the agreement about the betrayal, while John says, “After the piece of bread, Satan entered him”? John himself knew this, for earlier he says, “After supper had ended, the devil having already put it into Judas’s heart to betray Him.” How, then, does he say, “After the piece of bread, Satan entered him”? Because he does not enter suddenly or all at once, but first makes many attempts, as he did here too. For after testing him at the beginning and quietly attacking him, once he saw him ready to receive him, he breathed his whole self into him and took complete control of him. But if they were eating the Passover, why did they eat it contrary to the law? For they should not have eaten it sitting down to their meal. What, then, can we say? That after eating it, they sat down to the banquet. But another evangelist says that on that evening He not only ate the Passover but also said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you,” meaning the Passover of that year. Why? Because then the salvation of the world was to be accomplished, the mysteries handed down, and the causes of sorrow removed by His death. That is how welcome the cross was to Him. But nothing softened that savage monster, moved him, or shamed him. He declared him miserable, saying, “Woe to that man.” He alarmed him again, saying, “It would have been good for him if he had not been born.” He put him to shame, saying, “To whom I will give a piece of bread after dipping it.” None of these things restrained him. Instead, greed seized him like a kind of madness—or rather, like a more terrible disease. For this is indeed the more terrible madness. For what would a madman do that compares with this? He did not pour foam from his mouth; he poured out the murder of his Lord. He did not twist his hands; he stretched them out for the price of precious blood. His madness was therefore greater, because he was mad while in good health. But, you say, he does not utter meaningless sounds. And what is more meaningless than these words: “What will you give me, and I will hand Him over to you?” “I will hand Him over”—the devil spoke through that mouth. But he did not stamp his feet on the ground in a fit? How much better it would have been to struggle like that than to stand upright like this! But, you say, he did not cut himself with stones? Yet how much better that would have been than doing things like these! Would you like us to bring forward the possessed man and the greedy man and compare the two? But let no one take what we do as an insult to himself. For we are not insulting human nature; we are grieving over the act. The possessed man never wore clothes; he cut himself with stones, ran, and rushed over rough paths, driven headlong by the devil. Don’t these things seem dreadful? What, then, if I show that greedy people do worse things to their own souls—so much worse that these things seem like child’s play in comparison? Will you then shun this plague? Come, then, let us see whether they are in any way better off than the possessed. In no way; their condition is even worse. Indeed, they are more shameful sights than ten thousand naked people. For it would be far better to wear no clothes than to go around clothed in the proceeds of greed, like those who celebrate the orgies of Bacchus. For just as those people wear madmen’s masks and clothes, so do these. And just as madness causes the possessed man’s nakedness, madness also produces this clothing, and the clothing is more wretched than the nakedness. I will try to prove this as follows. Among madmen themselves, whom would we call more mad: someone who cuts himself, or someone who harms both himself and those he meets? Clearly, the latter. Madmen strip themselves of their clothes, but these people strip everyone they meet. “But these madmen tear their clothes to pieces.” And how gladly would every victim agree to have his garment torn rather than be stripped of everything he owns? “But those greedy people do not strike people in the face.” First, greedy people do even this; and although not all do, all of them inflict more terrible pain on the belly through hunger and poverty. “But those people do not bite with their teeth.” If only they used teeth instead of greed’s darts, which are fiercer than teeth! “For their teeth are weapons and darts.” Who will suffer more pain: someone bitten once and immediately healed, or someone continually eaten away by the teeth of poverty? For involuntary poverty is more terrible than a furnace or a wild beast. “But those people do not rush into the wilderness like people possessed by demons.” If only they overran the wilderness instead of the cities, so that everyone in the cities could be safe! For here again they are more unbearable than all the insane, because they do in the cities what the others do in the wilderness, turning cities into wilderness and plundering everyone’s goods as though they were in a wilderness where no one could stop them. “But they do not throw stones at the people they meet.” And what does that matter? Stones would be easy to guard against. But among those who encounter them, who can easily guard against the wounds they inflict on the wretched poor with paper and ink (drawing up documents full of countless blows)? 4. Let us also see what they do to themselves. They walk naked up and down the city, for they have no garment of virtue. If this does not seem disgraceful to them, that too comes from their extreme madness: they have no sense of its indecency. Though ashamed to have their bodies naked, they carry their souls around naked and take pride in it. If you wish, I will also tell you why they have lost all feeling. What is the cause? They are naked among many others who are naked in the same way, and so they feel no shame, just as we feel none in the baths. If many people were clothed in virtue, their shame would then be more apparent. But now this, above all, deserves many tears: because bad people are so numerous, bad things are no longer even considered disgraceful. For besides everything else, the devil has accomplished this too: he keeps them from gaining even an awareness of their evil deeds, using the great number of people practicing wickedness to cast a shadow over their disgrace. For if such a person found himself among a crowd of people practicing self-restraint, he would see his nakedness more clearly. These things make it clear that they are more naked than the possessed; and no one could deny that they too go into the wilderness. For the wide and broad road is more deserted than any wilderness. Although many travel on it, none are human beings, but serpents, scorpions, wolves, adders, and asps. Such are those who practice wickedness. And this road is not only deserted, but much rougher than the madmen’s road. This is clear from the following: stones, ravines, and crags do not wound those who climb them as badly as robbery and greed wound the souls of those who practice them. That they live among tombs like the possessed—or rather, that they themselves are tombs—is clear from this. What is a tomb? A stone with a dead body lying inside it. How, then, do these people’s bodies differ from those stones? In fact, they are even more wretched. For here is not a stone containing a dead body, but a body more unfeeling than stones, carrying around a dead soul. So it would not be wrong to call them tombs. Our Lord too called the Jews this, especially for this reason; at any rate, He went on to say, “Their insides are full of robbery and greed.” Would you like me to show next how they too cut their heads with stones? Where, then, would you like to learn this first—from things here or from things to come? But they pay little attention to things to come, so we must speak of things here. Aren’t anxieties worse than many stones, consuming the soul rather than wounding the head? For they fear that the things that entered their house unjustly may justly leave it. They tremble in fear of the worst evils; they grow angry and irritated with their own household and with strangers. Now despair, now fear, now rage comes over them in turn, and they are like people crossing one precipice after another. Day after day they eagerly look for what they have not yet acquired. So they take no pleasure in what they have, both because they have no confidence that it is secure and because their whole mind is fixed on what they have not yet seized. Just as someone who is always thirsty would feel no pleasure even if he drank up ten thousand springs, because he is never satisfied, so these people, far from feeling pleasure, are tormented all the more as they pile up possessions around themselves, because they feel no limit to this desire. That is how things are here; but let us also speak of the day to come. Though they pay no attention, we must still speak. On that day, then, we will see people like these being punished everywhere. For when He says, “I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink,” He is punishing these people. And when He says, “Depart into the eternal fire prepared for the devil,” He is sending there those who misuse riches. The wicked servant who does not give his fellow servants their Lord’s goods is one of these people, as are the man who buried his talent and the five virgins. Wherever you go, you will see the greedy punished. At one point they will hear, “There is a gulf between us and you”; at another, “Depart from Me into the fire that is prepared.” And then, cut in two, they will go away to where there is gnashing of teeth. You can see them driven from every place, finding a place nowhere, but gathered only in hell. 5. What use, then, is right faith to us for salvation, when we hear these things? There, gnashing of teeth, outer darkness, the fire prepared for the devil, being cut in two, and being driven away; here, hostilities, malicious talk, slander, dangers, worries, plots, being hated by everyone and loathed by everyone, even the very people who seem to flatter us. For just as good people are admired not only by the good but even by the wicked, so bad people are hated not only by the good but also by the worthless. To prove that this is true, I would gladly ask greedy people whether they do not resent one another and regard one another as greater enemies than those who have done them the greatest wrong; whether they do not also accuse themselves; and whether they do not consider it an insult when someone levels this accusation against them. For it is indeed an extreme insult and a sure sign of great wickedness. If you cannot bear to despise wealth, what will you ever overcome—lust, the mad desire for glory, anger, or rage? And how could anyone believe you would? For many attribute lust, anger, and rage even to the temperament of the flesh, and students of medicine trace their excesses to this. They say that someone with a hotter and more sluggish temperament is more lustful, while someone whose unhealthy temperament tends toward dryness is impetuous, irritable, and prone to rage. But no one has ever heard them say anything like this about greed. This plague is entirely the result of sheer negligence and a soul that has lost all feeling. Therefore, I beg you, let us work hard to correct all these things and turn the passions that come upon us at every age in the opposite direction. But if at every stage of life we sail past the hard work of virtue, suffering shipwreck everywhere, then when we reach the harbor without any spiritual cargo, we will face extreme punishment. For our present life is a vast ocean. And just as on the sea here, different bays are exposed to different storms—the Aegean is difficult because of its winds, the Tyrrhenian strait because of its narrowness, the Charybdis near Africa because of its shallows, the Sea of Marmara, outside the Black Sea, because of its violence and currents, the regions beyond Cadiz because of their desolation and their uncharted, unexplored waters, and other stretches for other reasons—so it is with our life. The first sea we encounter is childhood, full of storms because of its foolishness, its readiness to be swayed, and its instability. That is why we place guides and teachers over it, diligently supplying what nature lacks, just as a pilot’s skill does at sea. After this age comes the sea of youth, where the winds are violent, as in the Aegean, and lust grows stronger in us. This age especially lacks correction, not only because the young person faces fiercer attacks, but also because his faults go unchallenged, since both teacher and guide then withdraw. So when the winds blow more fiercely, the pilot is weaker, and there is no helper, consider how great the storm is. After this comes another stage of life, adulthood, when household cares press upon us: a wife, marriage, having children, managing a household, and thick showers of worries. This is when greed and envy especially flourish. If we pass through every stage of life suffering shipwreck, how will we cope with this present life? How will we escape future punishment? For if we first learn nothing healthy in our earliest years, then fail to practice self-restraint in youth, and fail to overcome greed in adulthood, we will come to old age like a hold full of bilgewater. Having weakened the boat of the soul with all these shocks, with its planks coming apart, we will reach that harbor carrying a load of filth instead of spiritual merchandise. We will give the devil cause for laughter and ourselves cause for mourning, and bring unbearable punishments upon ourselves. To keep these things from happening, let us brace ourselves on every side and resist all our passions. Let us cast out the lust for wealth, so that we may also attain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.