Homilies on First Timothy 13

'Command and teach these things.'

'Let no man despise your youth; but be an example to the believers, in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.'

'Until I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to teaching.'

'Neglect not the gift that is in you, which was given you by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.'

Of matters, some require teaching, others command.

If, then, you give commands concerning things that ought to be taught, you will be laughed at;

and again, if you teach concerning things that ought to be commanded, you likewise incur the same.

That a man should not be wicked—concerning this one ought not to teach, but to command and to forbid with greater authority;

that one should not Judaize requires a command.

If, however, you say that one ought to empty out one's possessions, that one ought to keep virginity, if you discourse concerning the faith, here there is need of teaching.

For this reason Paul sets down both.

'Command and teach,' he says.

For instance, if someone wears amulets, or anything else of the kind—when men do these things knowing them to be wicked, there is need of command only;

but when they do them not knowing, there is need of teaching.

'Let no man despise your youth,' he says.

Do you see that the priest ought also to command and to speak with greater authority, not to teach in all things? For youth has somehow become a thing easily despised, from the common prejudice;

for this reason he says, 'Let no man despise your youth.'

For the teacher ought also to be one who cannot be despised.

Where then is gentleness? he asks; where then is meekness, if he is not to be despised? In the things that concern himself, let him be despised and bear it;

for so is teaching accomplished aright, by long-suffering;

but in the things that concern others, no longer;

for that is not gentleness, but coldness.

If he avenges insults done to himself, if reviling, if plots, you rightly accuse him;

but if it is for the salvation of others, command and provide for it with authority.

Here there is no longer need of gentleness, but of authority, lest the common good be harmed.

'Let no man despise you on account of your youth';

for so long as you display a life that counterbalances it, no one will despise you on account of your age, but will rather even admire you.

For this reason he adds, saying, 'But be an example to the believers, in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity,' offering yourself in all things as a pattern of good works.

That is, be yourself the archetype of the life, set forth as an image, as a living law, as a rule and standard of good living.

For such ought the teacher to be.

'In word,' so as to speak also with readiness;

'In conduct, in love, in faith, in purity'—that is, in right purity, in temperance;

'Until I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to teaching.'

He bids Timothy give attention to reading.

Let us all hear, and be taught not to neglect the study of the divine Scriptures.

Behold again, 'Until I come,' he says. See how he consoles him;

for it was likely that, being left as it were orphaned, he was full of longing.

'Until I come,' he says, 'give attention to reading'—that is, of the divine Scriptures; 'to exhortation'—the exhortation of one another; 'to teaching'—the teaching directed to all.

'Neglect not the gift that is in you, which was given you by prophecy.'

By 'prophecy' he here means the teaching.

'With the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.'

He does not here speak of presbyters, but of bishops;

for surely presbyters did not ordain a bishop.

'Meditate on these things; be in them.'

See how often he charges him concerning the same things, wishing to show that above all else the teacher ought to be diligent in these.

'Take heed to thyself,' he says, 'and to the teaching; continue in these things.'

That is: Give heed to thyself, and teach the rest also.

For by doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee.

For he who is nourished upon the words of teaching first reaps the benefit himself;

for in exhorting others he pricks his own heart as well.

For these things were surely not spoken to Timothy alone, but to all.

But if he gives such exhortation to one who raised the dead, what shall we say? Christ too hints at what concerns teachers, saying:

'The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.'

And again the blessed Paul, exhorting to the same thing, says:

'That through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.'

And most of all he himself practised this, being educated at the feet of Gamaliel in the law of his fathers, so that it is likely he continued to give heed to reading even afterward;

for he who exhorted others to these things would surely first have exhorted himself.

You see him, at any rate, continually making use of the testimonies of the prophets, and contemplating the things contained in them.

Then, if Paul gives heed to reading (for it is no small profit that may be reaped from the Scriptures),

but we are slothful and listen carelessly—of how great a punishment should we not be worthy? For 'that thy progress may be manifest,' he says, 'in all things.'

You see that he wished him to become great and admirable in this respect too? For this reason he spoke thus, showing that he still had need of it.

What means, 'That thy progress may be manifest in all things'? Not in thy manner of life only, he says, but also in thy teaching word.

Does he now speak of dignity of office? I for my part think not, but of everyone who has grown old.

What then, if he should need correction? Do not rebuke him sharply, he says, but as if thou wert dealing with a father who had sinned, so also converse with him.

'The elder women as mothers, the younger men as brethren, the younger women as sisters, in all purity.'

The very nature of the thing—I mean being reproved—is something burdensome, and most of all when it happens to an old man;

and if it comes from a young man as well, the presumption becomes threefold.

He therefore softens it by the manner and by gentleness.

For it is possible to reprove without giving offense, if one is willing to practise this;

for indeed it requires great discernment, yet it is possible.

'The younger men as brethren,' he says.

Why did he here also give this exhortation? Again hinting at their boldness on account of their age.

Here too, then, one must soften the matter by forbearance.

'The younger women,' he says, 'as sisters';

and he added, 'in all purity.'

Do not, he says, name to me only the sin of intercourse, but do not give occasion even for suspicion.

For since conversations with younger women hardly escape suspicion, and this too must be done by the bishop, for this reason he adds, 'in all purity,' showing that it is fitting to hold conversations with them with all purity.

What sayest thou, tell me? Dost thou lay these charges upon Timothy? Yes, he says;

for through him I am speaking to the whole world.

But if he lays these charges upon Timothy, let each of the rest consider what manner of man he ought to be, giving neither ground for suspicion nor the shadow of a pretext to those who wish to slander.

'Honour widows that are widows indeed.'

Why does he say nothing about virginity, nor say, 'Honour virgins'? Because it seems to me that there were then none, or that they had fallen away.

'For already,' he says, 'some are turned aside after Satan.'

'Honour widows that are widows indeed,' he says.

It is possible, then, not to have a husband and yet not to be a widow.

For just as it is not this that makes the virgin a virgin, the not having known marriage, but there is need of many other things as well—of blamelessness, of constant attendance—

so also it is not simply the being bereft of a husband that makes the widow, but the endurance joined with self-control, the being solitary and cut off from all.

Such widows he exhorts to honour, and with good reason;

for being solitary they have need of much honour;

they have no husbands to stand up for them;

the thing seems reproachful and ill-omened in the eyes of the many.

For this reason he wishes her to enjoy much honour from the priest;

and not for this reason only, but because she is also worthy.

'But if any widow have children or grandchildren, let them learn first to show piety toward their own house, and to requite their forebears.'

Observe Paul's prudence, how in many places he urges from human considerations.

For here he did not set forth anything great and lofty, but what is agreeable to conscience;

'And to requite,' he says, 'their forebears.'

How? For their upbringing, for their rearing.

As if to say: Thou didst enjoy much care;

thou wast not able to repay them the recompense;

for surely thou didst not thyself beget them, nor didst thou rear them;

make thy return in his grandchildren, pay the debt through the children.

'Let them learn,' he says, 'first to show piety toward their own house.'

Here he speaks of doing good in a more simple sense.

Then, that he might exalt it the more, he added:

'For this is acceptable in the sight of God.'

And since he said, 'the widows indeed,' he tells who the widow indeed is.

'Now she that is a widow indeed and solitary hath set her hope on God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day;

but she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.'

If any woman, he says, has not chosen a worldly life, and is in widowhood, she is a widow indeed;

she that hopes in God as she ought, that clings to supplication, and perseveres night and day—she is a widow;

not that she who has children is not a widow;

for indeed he admires her also, who rears her children as she ought;

but if any has no children, that is, she who is solitary.

Then he comforts her, as one who has no children, saying that this is most of all to be a widow, when she happens to be deprived not only of the comfort from a husband, but also of that from children.

For she has God in place of all things.

For she who has no children is not thereby the lesser; rather, whatever is wanting to her through the absence of children she fills up with consolation.

What he says, then, is of this sort:

Do not grieve if you hear that one must rear children, as though you had no children, as though on this account your dignity were the less;

But the widow who lives in self-indulgence is dead while she lives.

For since many women who have children choose widowhood, not that they may cut off the occasions of a worldly life, but rather that they may inflame them the more, so that they may do all things with greater licence, and give themselves up rather to worldly desires, therefore he says, But she who lives in self-indulgence is dead while she lives.

What do you say? Ought not even a widow woman to live in self-indulgence? No, he says.

If, then, even when both her age and her nature are weak, not even so is self-indulgence necessary, but becomes the procurer of death—of eternal death—what could men say who live in self-indulgence? And with reason he says, But she who lives in self-indulgence is dead while she lives.

But that you may learn, come, let us see what is the work of the living, and what of the dead, and where we shall place this woman.

The living do the works of life—of the life to come, of the true life.

And what are the things of the life to come, about which it behooves us to be occupied all our time, hear Christ saying:

Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat;

I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink.

The living are distinguished from the dead not by this alone, that they behold the sun and breathe the air;

it is not by this that we say they differ, but by their doing some good;

for if this be not present, they will be nothing better than the dead.

the dead.

And that you may learn, hear how it is possible even for one who has died to live.

God, he says, is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

But this again, he says, is a riddle.

Let us then unravel both.

One who is alive has died, when he passes his time in self-indulgence.

How? He lives for the belly alone, but by the other senses not at all;

as, for instance, he does not see what he ought to see, does not hear what he ought to hear, does not utter what he ought to utter, nor does he perform the works of the living;

but just as that man stretched upon the bed, having closed his eyes and drawn together his eyelids, perceives none of the things that are, so also is this one;

or rather, not so, but far worse.

For that man is alike insensible to good things and to evil;

but this one perceives those alone—the evils, I mean—while toward good things he is, like the man laid low, immovable.

In this way, then, he too has died.

For nothing of the things of the life to come moves him; but as into some dark and gloomy pit and cave full of much uncleanness, drunkenness, having taken him into its own bosom, makes him spend all his time in darkness, like the dead.

For when a man passes all his time part in feasting and part in drunkenness, is he not in darkness? Is he not a dead man? And even toward the dawn, when he seems to be sober, he has not a pure sobriety, since the evening's wine has not yet been emptied out and drained away, and since he is strongly held fast by the desire of what is to come, and passes the afternoon and midday in revels, and the whole night in deep sleep, and the greater part of the morning too.

Shall we then, tell me, number this man among the living? What could one say of the great tempest which flows in from luxury upon the soul and upon the bodies? For just as continuous and unbroken cloudiness never lets the sunbeam shine through;

so the fumes of luxury and of wine, seizing the brain as it were some crag, and setting there a dense cloud, never let the reasoning faculty stretch itself out, holding the drunken man in deep moonless darkness.

How great, think you, is the tempest within the man who has suffered these things? How great the tumult? For just as, when a flood has come and the water has leaped over the thresholds of the workshops, we see those who dwell there ever in an uproar, and devising jars and pitchers and sponges and many other things, so as to bale it out, lest it rot the very foundations and render all the vessels useless;

so also the soul, when it becomes waterlogged by much luxury, the thoughts within are thrown into tumult, and being no longer able to empty out what has already gathered, because yet another comes flooding in, a great tempest is bred.

For do not look at the countenance, bright and grinning, but examine what is within, and you will see it full of much dejection;

and if it were possible, casting out the soul, to set it before the eyes of the body, you would see the soul of the self-indulgent woman dejected, gloomy, sorrowful, wasted away.

For the more the body is made fat and gross, so much the more is she wasted away and becomes weaker;

and the more that is warmed and cherished, so much the more is she buried.

And just as in the case of the pupil of the eyes, if it have the little coats that lie without it thick, the power of sight is not able to send itself forth and to gaze steadily, the ray being beaten back by the thickness, and often darkness ensues;

so also the body, when it is continually made fat, it is likely that much thickness surrounds it.

But the dead, he says, rot and are corrupted, and much foul matter flows from them.

So also in the case of the self-indulgent woman one may see it—the flux, the phlegm, catarrh, hiccups, vomitings, belchings;

for the rest, which it is even shameful to mention, I pass over.

For so great is the tyranny of luxury, that things which we cannot even endure to name, these it makes them submit to.

Do you then still ask how the body flows away on every side? But it eats and drinks? Yet this is no proof of human life, since the brute beasts also eat and drink.

the soul, therefore, lying prostrate,

what is the profit of eating and drinking? For just as, when the body lies dead, a fair garment wrapped about it is of no benefit, so also a body clad in fair array around a dead soul profits nothing.

For when her talk is always about cooks, about caterers, about confectioners, and she utters nothing godly, is she not dead? For let us see what man is.

Those without say he is a living creature, rational, mortal, capable of mind and knowledge;

but let us not take our definition from them, but from where? From the divine Scripture.

Where, then, has Scripture set forth a definition of man? Hear it saying:

There was a man righteous, true, God-fearing, abstaining from every evil deed.

A great thing is man, and a precious thing is a merciful man.

But those who are not such, even though they partake of mind, even though ten thousand times over they be capable of knowledge, Scripture knows not to call men, but dogs, and horses, and vipers, and serpents, and foxes, and wolves, and whatever is more dishonorable than these among the beasts;

if, then, this is man, the self-indulgent person is not a man.

For how could he be, who cares for none of these things? For it is not possible for self-indulgence and sobriety to come together;

these are destructive of one another.

This too those without say: A gross belly does not beget a subtle mind.

Scripture knows how to call men even soulless;

My Spirit shall not abide in these men, because they are flesh.

And yet indeed they had a soul; but since they carried it about dead, he called them flesh.

For just as concerning the virtuous, even though they have a body, we nevertheless say, He is all soul, he is all spirit, so also concerning those who are not such we say the contrary.

You are not in the flesh, since they were not performing the things of the flesh.

Thus the self-indulgent are not in the soul, nor in the spirit.

But she who lives in self-indulgence is dead while she lives, he says.

Hear, you who pass all your time in revels and drunkenness, you who overlook the poor as they waste away with hunger and die, while you yourselves are continually dying of your luxury.

For you work two deaths—that of the afflicted, and that of your own selves—both of them from want of measure.

But if you had tempered your own fullness with their want, you would have wrought two lives.

Why do you distend your own belly with over-fullness, while you waste away the belly of the poor man with want? This one you fatten beyond measure;

that one you dry up beyond all measure.

Consider what food is: into what it is changed, and what it becomes.

Are you not disgusted even at hearing it? Why then are you so eager to lay up more of these things? The excess of luxury is nothing else.

For nature has its measures, and whatever exceeds them is no longer nourishment, but corruption and so much the more dung.

Nourish the body; do not kill it.

For this reason it is called nourishment: not that we should destroy the body, but that we should nourish it.

For this reason, I think, food is even excreted to this end, that we should not be lovers of luxury;

for if this were not so, if food did not pass into what is useless nor corrupt the body, we would never cease from devouring one another.

For if the belly, receiving as much as we wished, worked it all up and passed it on to the body, you would have seen countless wars and battles.

For if even now, though part of our food is excreted as dung and part into blood and useless, spurious phlegm, we still cling to luxury and often squander whole fortunes at a single table;

if the end of luxury were not such as this, what would we not do? We fill ourselves with the more stench the more we indulge, the body streaming out on every side as from a leaking wine-skin.

One belches forth such a thing that it injures even the brain of those standing near;

murky vapours are sent up from the body on every side, as from a furnace when the heat within has grown putrid.

But if those outside are so distressed, what do you think the brain suffers within, being smitten

continually by these vapours? And the channels of the blood, boiling and choked? And those reservoirs, the liver, the spleen? And the very sewers of the dung? And the grievous thing is that we take forethought for these sewers of dung, that they may not be choked and send the dung upward, and we do everything for this purpose, thrusting with poles and dragging with mattocks;

but the sewers of our own belly we do not cleanse, but block up and pack full;

and when the dung mounts upward to where the king himself sits enthroned—I mean the brain—we take no forethought at all.

For this very reason we do not act in all things as having an orderly king, but as having some unclean dog.

For this reason God settled those members far off, so that we might receive no injury from them.

But we do not allow it; rather, we ruin everything by immoderation.

And what should one say of the other evils? Block up the channels of the sewers, and you will straightway see a pestilence bred.

Then, if the stench that falls upon us from without breeds a pestilence, does not that which is within, choked up on every side by the closeness of the body, and having no way to be dispersed, work countless diseases both to body and soul? And the terrible thing is that many are indignant against God, saying, 'What in the world is this?'

He has ordained by law that we should carry dung about with us';

yet they themselves increase the dung.

For this reason God ordained it by law: that at least in this way He might deliver us from luxury, that at least in this way He might persuade us not to be nailed to the things of this life.

But you do not even so consent to cease from luxury; rather, though the pleasure remains only as far as the throat, only for the moment of the meal—nay, not even so long—you persist in your luxury.

Or does not the pleasure both run past the tongue and the gullet at once, and is quenched? For the sensation is in the tasting; but after that no longer, but much disgust, the stomach either failing to digest, or doing so with much difficulty.

With good reason, then, he said: 'She that lives in wanton pleasure is dead while she lives.'

For there is nothing more wretched, nothing one could either hear of or speak of, than a soul given over to wanton pleasure;

it becomes soft, ignoble, unmanly, servile, cowardly, full of rashness, flattery, ignorance, wrath, irascibility—full of all evils, and destitute of the opposite goods.

'And these things command, that they may be blameless.'

Do you see that the matter is one of legislation? He does not leave it to their own choice;

'Command,' he says, 'that they live not in luxury,' as of a thing acknowledged to be evil, as though it were not possible nor permissible for one living in luxury to partake of the mysteries.

'And these things command,' he says, 'that they may be blameless.'

Do you see that the matter lies among the sins? For that which lies in the will, even if it be not carried out, in no way hinders one from being blameless.

Therefore, obeying Paul, let us also command that widows who live in wanton pleasure be excluded from the roll of widows.

For if a soldier who gives himself to baths and theatres and business dealings is judged as a deserter, much more the widows.

Let us not seek repose here, that we may find it there;

let us not live in wanton pleasure here, that we may there enjoy the pleasure that is true, the luxury that is true—which breeds no evil, which possesses countless goods;

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