Homilies on First Corinthians 32 part 2/2

For this very reason, having said, 'The first and great commandment is, You shall love the Lord your God,' He went on, 'And the second'—and He did not keep silent, but added, 'is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

And observe how with almost the same intensity He requires this second commandment also.

For concerning God He says, 'With all your heart';

but concerning your neighbor, 'As yourself,' which is equivalent to 'With all your heart.'

For indeed, if this were exactly observed, there would be no slave, no free man, no ruler, no ruled, no rich, no poor, no small, no great, nor would the devil ever have been known;

I do not say this one man only, but even if there were another such, or rather even if a hundred, and ten thousand such, they would avail nothing while she [love] existed.

For grass would sooner endure the application of fire than the devil the flame of love.

This is stronger than a wall, this is firmer than adamant;

and though you should name some material stronger than this, the firmness of love surpasses all.

This neither wealth nor poverty overcomes;

or rather, there would be neither poverty nor immoderate wealth, if love existed, but only the good things arising from each.

For we should reap the abundance that comes from the one, and the freedom from care that comes from the other;

and we should endure neither the anxieties of wealth nor the fear of poverty.

And why do I speak of the gains that come from it? For consider, in itself, how great a thing it is to love, how much gladness it brings, in how great grace it establishes the soul—which is its most special property.

For the other parts of virtue have toil yoked to them—for instance, fasting, self-control, wakefulness have envy, desire, contempt;

but love, together with its gain, has also much pleasure, and no toil at all;

and like a good bee, gathering the good things from every quarter, it deposits them in the soul of the one who loves.

And even if a man be in servitude, love makes his servitude sweeter than freedom.

For he who loves is not so much one who gives commands.

he rejoices as though he were being commanded, and yet to command is a sweet thing;

but love changes the very nature of things, and comes bearing all good things in her hands, gentler than any mother, richer than any queen; she makes what is toilsome light and most easy, showing virtue to be pleasant and vice to be most bitter to us.

To spend seems to be a grievous thing, yet love makes even this pleasant;

to take what belongs to others is pleasant, yet love does not allow this to appear pleasant, but rather makes us flee it as something base.

Again, to speak evil of others seems sweet to all;

but love makes this to be a small thing, and shows that to speak well of others is the pleasant thing;

for nothing is so pleasant to us as to praise the one we love.

Again, anger has a certain pleasure, but here it has none any longer; rather, all its sinews are cut through;

and even should the beloved grieve the one who loves him, no anger anywhere appears, but tears and entreaties and supplications;

so far is he from being provoked to bitterness.

And if he sees the beloved sinning, he mourns and is pained;

yet even this pain brings its own pleasure.

For the tears and grief that spring from love are sweeter than all laughter and joy.

Those who laugh, at any rate, are not so refreshed as those who weep for their friends;

and if you disbelieve it, stay their tears, and they will be as distressed as those who have suffered incurable evils.

'But love has,' one says, 'a certain unseemly pleasure.'

Away with the thought, and speak reverently, O man;

for nothing is so pure from such pleasure as genuine love.

For do not speak to me of that vulgar and common love, which is rather a disease than love, but of that love which Paul

seeks after, the love that looks to the profit of those who are loved; and you will see that such men are more tenderly affectionate than fathers.

And just as those who love money would not choose to spend money, but would more gladly endure straitened circumstances than see it diminished,

so too the one who is affectionately disposed toward another would choose to suffer ten thousand things rather than see the beloved harmed.

'How then,' one asks, 'did the Egyptian woman, though she loved Joseph, wish to insult him?' Because she loved that diabolical kind of love.

Joseph, however, loved not that love, but the love which Paul seeks.

Consider, then, how great was the love in his words, and how great the deeds which she was urging;

'Insult me, and make me an adulteress, and wrong your master, and overthrow the whole household, and cast yourself out from your boldness before God';

which were the words of one who loved not only him, but not even herself.

But he, since he loved genuinely, sought to lead her away from all these things.

And that you may learn that he cared for her, understand it from his very exhortation.

For he not only thrust her away, but also brought in an exhortation able to quench every fire.

'For if my master,' he says, 'because of me knows nothing of what is in his house';

at once he reminded her of her husband, that he might put her to shame.

And he did not say, 'Your husband,' but 'My master,' which was more effective to restrain her and to persuade her to consider who she was and whom she was desiring, namely that she, being a mistress, desired a slave.

For if he is master, you also are mistress.

Be ashamed, then, of your dealings with a slave, and consider whose wife you are, with whom you wish to be entangled, against whom you are becoming thankless and senseless, and that I render him greater goodwill.

And see how he magnifies the master's benefactions.

For since that barbarous and licentious woman could conceive nothing lofty, he puts her to shame by means of human considerations, saying:

'He knows nothing because of me';

that is, 'He benefits me greatly, and I cannot smite my protector among masters.'

'He has made me second master of the house, and, No one has been withheld from me except you.'

Here he exalts her thoughts, that even so he might induce her to feel shame, and might show how great was the honor.

And he did not even stop at this, but added a name able to restrain her, saying:

'Because you are his wife, how then shall I do this wicked thing?' But what do you say? That the husband is not present, nor knows that he is being wronged? But God will look upon it.

But she gained nothing from that counsel, but rather it inflamed her against him.

For wishing to satisfy her own frenzy, and not loving Joseph, she did these things;

and this is clear from what she did afterward.

For she sets up a tribunal, and brings in an accusation, and bears false witness, and hands over to the wild beast the one who had done no wrong, and casts him into prison;

or rather, for her part, she even slew him;

so did she arm the judge against him.

What then? Was Joseph too of such a sort? Quite the contrary in every respect;

for he neither spoke against her, nor accused the woman.

And indeed he was exceedingly loved, and this is clear not only from the beginning, but also from the end.

For unless that barbarian loved him exceedingly, he would have put him to death, though he kept silence and made no reply.

For he was an Egyptian, and a ruler, and one wronged (as he supposed) in his marriage bed, and that by a household slave, and a slave who had been so greatly benefited.

But all these things were overcome by the yearning and the grace which God poured out upon him.

And besides that grace and this love, he had no small proofs, had he wished to plead his cause: the very garments themselves.

For if she had been the one violated, her own tunic ought to have been torn, her face scratched, not she holding fast his garments.

'But he heard,' she says, 'that I lifted up my voice, and leaving his garments, he fled away.'

For what reason, then, did you strip him? For to a woman suffering violence what was desirable? To be rid of the one troubling her.

But I shall be able to show his goodwill and love not only from this, but also from what followed.

For when he fell under the necessity of stating the cause of his imprisonment and of his stay there, not even then did he disclose the affair, but what does he say? 'And I have done nothing, but by theft'

and nowhere does he mention the adulteress, nor does he plume himself upon the matter, which anyone at all would have done, if not for vainglory, yet at least so as not to seem to have been cast into that dungeon for a wicked cause.

For if even men who sin do not thus refrain from bringing such charges, although the matter carries shame, how is he not worthy to be admired, that even being pure he did not tell of the woman's passion, nor parade the sin, nor even when he ascended the throne and became king of all Egypt did he bear malice against the woman, nor exact retribution?

You saw how he cared for her, while she loved not, but raged? For she did not love Joseph, but wished to satisfy her lust;

and even her very words, if one examine them accurately, are full of wrath and much murderousness.

For what does she say? 'You brought in a Hebrew servant to mock us,' reproaching her husband with the benefaction;

and she displayed the garments, having become fiercer than any wild beast.

And why do I speak of his goodwill toward her, when he was of such a sort even toward the brothers who had made away with him, and never said anything harsh concerning them, neither within nor without? For this reason Paul says that this love is the mother of all good things, and sets it before signs and the other gifts.

For just as when there are garments of gold and sandals of gold, we still need some other token in order to recognize the king;

but if we see the purple robe and the diadem, we seek no other sign of royalty to behold;

When the diadem of love is set upon a man, it is enough to reveal the true disciple of Christ, and that not to us only, but even to unbelievers.

For, He says, 'By this shall all know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.'

So then this sign is greater than all signs, seeing that by it the disciple is recognized.

For even though some should work ten thousand signs, yet if they are at strife with one another, they will be a laughing-stock to the unbelievers;

even as, on the other hand, though they should work no sign at all, yet if they love one another perfectly, they remain venerable and unconquerable in the eyes of all.

Since it is on this account that we also admire Paul, not because of the dead whom he raised, nor because of the lepers whom he cleansed, but because he said, 'Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is made to stumble, and I burn not?' For even if you set against these ten thousand signs, you will say nothing equal to it;

since he himself declared that a great reward was laid up for him, not because he wrought signs, but because he became as one weak to the weak.

'For what is my reward?' he says. 'That when I preach the Gospel, I may make the Gospel without charge.'

And when he sets himself before the apostles, he does not say, 'I wrought more signs than they;'

but, 'I laboured more abundantly than they.'

And for this cause he was willing even to die of hunger, for the salvation of his disciples;

'For it were good for me,' he says, 'rather to die, than that any man should make my glorying void.'

not because he was boasting himself, but that he might not seem to be reproaching them.

For nowhere does he know how to boast in his own good deeds, when the occasion does not call for it; but even if he be constrained to do so, he calls himself a fool.

But if ever he does boast, it is in his infirmities, in insults, in his vehement sharing of the sufferings of those who are wronged;

even as here also he says, 'Who is weak, and I am not weak?' These words are greater even than facing dangers;

wherefore also he places them last, heightening his discourse.

Of what, then, should we be worthy, being examined beside that man, we who neither despise money for our own sake, nor give away even the superfluities of our possessions? But he was not such; rather, he gave up both soul and body, that those who had stoned him and buffeted him might obtain the Kingdom.

'For thus,' he says, 'did Christ teach me to love'—He who left us the good commandment concerning love, and Himself fulfilled it in deed.

For being King of all, and being of that blessed nature, men whom He had made out of nothing, and to whom He had shown ten thousand benefits, when these insulted Him and spat upon Him, He turned not away from them, but even became man for their sake, and consorted with harlots and

tax-collectors, and healed those possessed of demons, and promised them heaven.

And after all these things, they took Him, and buffeted Him, bound Him, scourged Him, mocked Him, and at last crucified Him.

And not even so did He turn away from them, but even while hanging aloft upon the cross, He says:

'Father, forgive them the sin.'

And the thief who but a little before had accused Him, He brought into paradise; and the persecutor Paul He made an apostle; and His own household, even the disciples who reclined at table with Him, He gave up unto death for the sake of the Jews who crucified Him.

Gathering, then, unto ourselves all these things—the things of God and the things of men—let us emulate these good deeds, and let us acquire that love which is higher than all spiritual gifts, that we may attain both the present and the future good things;

which may it be granted us all to attain, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honour, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.