Homilies on Ephesians 18

For this you know, being assured, that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words;

for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

There were, as it seems, even in the days of our forefathers, some who weakened the hands of the people, and put into effect that word spoken by Ezekiel—or rather, did the deeds of the false prophets, who for handfuls of barley dishonored God before His people;

which very thing I think is even now being done by some.

So then, when we say that he who calls his brother a fool departs into hell, others say:

'Really—does he who calls his brother a fool depart into hell? No,' he says.

And when we say that the covetous man is an idolater, this too again they make light of, saying that the saying is an exaggeration;

and thus they cheapen all the commandments.

It was these, then, that the blessed Paul was hinting at when he wrote at that time to the Ephesians, saying thus:

For this you know, being assured, that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words.

These are empty words, having grace only for a season, and by no means displayed in deeds.

For these reasons the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

On account of fornication, he says, on account of covetousness, on account of uncleanness; or else both on account of these and on account of deceit, since they are deceivers.

He calls them sons of disobedience, that is, the exceedingly disobedient, those who disobey Him.

Therefore do not become partakers with them.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

See how wisely he exhorted them.

First from Christ: that you love one another, and wrong no one.

Then again from punishment and from hell.

For you were once darkness, he says, but now you are light in the Lord.

This is what he also says in the Epistle to the Romans.

What fruit, then, did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? And he reminds them of their former wickedness.

That is to say: Considering what you once were, and what you have now become, do not run back to your former wickedness, nor do despite to the grace of God.

You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Not from your own virtue, he says, but through the grace of God has this come to you.

That is to say: You too were once worthy of the same things, but no longer.

Walk therefore as children of light.

What then does it mean to be children of light? He goes on to add.

For the fruit of the Spirit is in all righteousness and goodness and truth.

Proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord.

In all goodness, he says.

This is against those who are wrathful, against those who are bitter.

This is against false pleasure.

Not those things which I spoke of, he says, but the contrary things.

That is to say, one must display spiritual fruit in all things.

Proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord.

Those things, then, belong to a childish and immature mind.

And do not have fellowship, he says, with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them.

For the things done by them in secret it is shameful even to speak of.

But all things, when they are reproved by the light, are made manifest.

And the light reproves the things done in darkness.

So that if you be virtuous and admirable, he says, the wicked will not be able to escape notice.

For just as when a lamp is set out all are given light, and the robber would not come in;

so when your light shines, the wicked will be caught, being reproved.

How then does He say, Judge not, that you be not judged? He said reprove, not condemn; that is, to correct.

And, Judge not, that you be not judged, He said concerning the least of sins.

Why do you look at the mote in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the beam in your own eye? And what He means is this.

Just as a wound, so long as it lurks covered over on the surface and runs deep, receives no care;

so also sin, so long as it is hidden, is dared with much impunity, as in the darkness;

but when it is made manifest, it becomes light.

For how could it be otherwise? But he who has committed it—

For when it is brought into the midst, when he is admonished, when he repents, when he obtains forgiveness—have you not cleansed away his darkness? Have you not then healed his wound? Have you not summoned forth his unfruitfulness to fruit? Either he means this, or he means that other thing: that your life, being manifest, is light;

for no one hides a blameless life;

but the things that are hidden are hidden because they are darkened.

Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon you.

By 'sleeping' and 'dead' he means the one in sins;

for such a one breathes forth a foul stench, like the dead; and he is inactive, like one asleep; and he sees nothing, like that one, but dreams and is deluded by fancies.

Some read, You shall touch upon Christ;

but others, Christ shall shine upon you.

Depart from sin, and you shall be able to see Christ.

For he who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light;

he therefore who does not practice it comes.

But he does not say this only concerning unbelievers;

for many of the faithful cleave to wickedness no less than the unbelievers;

and there are some who do so far more.

Therefore it is necessary to say to these also:

Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon you.

To these it is fitting to say this also:

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

If then He is not the God of the dead, let us live.

Some say that the saying, The covetous man is an idolater, is an exaggeration.

But the word is not one of exaggeration, but of truth.

How, and in what manner? Because the covetous man departs from God, just as the idolater does.

And lest you think it was spoken loosely, there is a declaration of Christ which says:

You cannot serve God and mammon.

Those who serve mammon have cast themselves out of the service of God;

and those who have denied His lordship and serve lifeless gold, it is quite clear that they are idolaters.

But I did not make an idol, one says, nor set up an altar, nor sacrifice sheep, nor pour out a libation of wine; rather I entered into the church, and stretched out my hands to the only-begotten Son of God, and partake of the mysteries, and share in prayer, and in all the other things which befit a Christian.

How then, one says, do I worship idols? This is the very thing that is most astonishing: that having received experience and tasted of the love of God for man, and having seen that the Lord is good, you have forsaken the good Master, and taken to yourself the cruel tyrant; and you pretend to serve this One, while in truth you have subjected yourself to the hard and grievous yoke of the love of money.

You have not yet told me of any good deed of your own, but only of the gifts of the Master.

For tell me, I beg you, by what test do we judge a soldier? When he guards the emperor as a spearman, is fed by him, and is enlisted under him,

or when he does not share his sovereign's mind, but pretends indeed to be with him and to serve his cause, while in fact he chooses the interests of the enemy? Clearly it is the one who truly guards the emperor.

For this reason such a man deserves a punishment more severe than one who has openly torn himself away from the emperor's service and joined the enemy.

So you too, when you act thus, dishonour God like an idolater—not with your one mouth only, but with the countless mouths of those whom you have wronged.

But, he says, one is not thereby an idolater.

Yet when the Greeks say, 'The Christian is a grasping, covetous man,' then he not only dishonours God by his own deeds, but he also often compels those whom he has wronged to say the same.

And if they do not say it, that must be set down to their own reverent restraint.

Or do we not see things happening in just this way? The idolater—what else is he? Does he not too often bow down to his passions, being mastered by his passion rather than mastering it? Here is what I mean:

When we say that he worships idols, 'No,' he says, 'but rather Aphrodite, or Ares.'

And if we ask, 'Who is this Aphrodite?' the more decent among them say she is Desire.

If we ask, 'Who is Mammon?'—it is Covetousness.

And do you worship this? 'I do not worship it,' he says.

Why? Because you do not bend your body before it? But in fact you now worship it far more, through your deeds and your dealings;

for that is the greater worship.

And that you may learn this, consider in the case of God: who worship him the more—those who simply stand at their prayers, or those who do his will? Clearly the latter.

So it is likewise with the servants of Mammon: those who do its will worship it the more.

And indeed those idolaters, though they worship the passions, are often themselves free of the passions;

for one might see the votary of Ares often keeping his own wrath in check;

but in your case it is no longer so; rather, you enslave yourself utterly to the passion.

But you do not slaughter sheep? No—but men, and rational souls, some by starvation, others by blasphemies.

Nothing is more frenzied, more Bacchic, than this sacrifice.

Who ever saw souls being slaughtered? Accursed is the altar of covetousness.

For if you come to that altar of the idols, you will see it reeking with the blood of goats and oxen;

but if you come to the altar of covetousness, you will see it breathing out the grievous stench of human blood.

If you stand by here, you will not behold the wings of birds burning, nor savour and smoke rising up, but the very bodies of men perishing.

For some have flung themselves down precipices, others have tied the noose, and others have driven a sword through their throat.

Have you seen sacrifices raw and inhuman? Would you see ones yet more grievous than these? I will show you—no longer the bodies of men, but the very souls of men being slaughtered there.

For it is possible for a soul to be slaughtered with a slaughter befitting a soul;

for just as there is a death of the body, so also there is a death of the soul.

'The soul that sins,' he says, 'that same soul shall die.'

It is not such a death as that of the body, but one far more grievous, the death of the soul.

For this bodily death, in loosing the soul and the body from one another, gives the body rest from many cares and toils, and dispatches the soul to a place made manifest;

then the body, dissolved and dispersed by time, is again gathered together in incorruption, and receives back its own soul.

But the death of the soul is dreadful and terrifying.

For if it is dissolved, it does not, as the body does, dispatch it onward; rather, being bound again to an incorruptible body, it casts it into the unquenchable fire.

This, then, is the death of the soul.

As, then, there is a death of the soul, so also there is a slaughter of the soul.

What is the slaughter of the body? To be put to death, and to be severed from the activity that proceeds from the soul.

What is the slaughter of the soul? This too is a putting to death.

And what is the deadening of the soul? For just as the body is then put to death when the soul leaves it bereft of its own activity,

so also the soul is then put to death when the Holy Spirit leaves it bereft of its own activity.

It is above all these slaughters that take place beside the altar of covetousness;

they are never sated, nor do they stop at the blood of men, but unless it slay the soul itself also, the altar of covetousness is not filled, unless it receives the souls of both—of the one who sacrifices and of the one sacrificed.

For the one who sacrifices must first be sacrificed himself, and thus he sacrifices; and the dead man sacrifices the one who is as yet alive.

For when he utters blasphemies, when he reviles, when he chafes with resentment, are not these blows to his soul incurable? Have you seen that the saying is no exaggeration? Would you hear yet another proof, and learn how covetousness is idolatry, and worse than idolatry? The idolaters bow down to God's creatures;

for it says, 'They reverenced and served the creature rather than the Creator';

but you bow down to your own creation.

For God did not create covetousness; rather, the boundlessness of your own insatiable greed invented it.

And behold both the madness and the absurdity of it.

Those who worship idols even honour the things they worship;

and if anyone speaks ill of them or reviles them, they come to their defence;

but you, as though under some intoxication, worship a thing that is not only not free from accusation, but is even full of impiety.

So that you are even worse than they;

for you could not offer as your defence that it is not an evil thing.

And even if those men are utterly without excuse, yet you are far more so—you who ten thousand times over accuse covetousness, and who revile all who serve it, are its slaves, and obey it.

But if you will, let us examine whence idolatry crept in.

A certain wise man says that a rich man, worn down by untimely grief for a son, and having no consolation for his mourning, comforted his sorrow in this way: he made a lifeless image of the deceased, and by gazing upon it continually, seemed to possess the departed one through the image.

And certain flattering men, whose god is their belly, paying court to the image in honour of the dead man, advanced the custom into idolatry.

Idolatry, therefore, was introduced from weakness of soul, from unreasoning custom, from want of measure.

But covetousness is not so;

for it too springs from a weak soul, only from a worse one.

No one lost a son, nor sought consolation for his grief, nor was drawn on by flatterers;

but how then? I will tell you.

Cain defrauded God through covetousness;

for the things that ought to have been given to Him he kept back for himself, and what he ought to have kept for himself, these he offered to Him; and so the evil began with God.

For if we ourselves belong to God, much more do the first-fruits of our possessions.

Again, the impulse toward women arose from covetousness;

'They saw the daughters of men,' and were rolled headlong into lust;

and from these things, again, to money.

For to wish to have more than one's neighbour in the things of this life comes from no other source than the chilling of love;

The desire to have more than one's share arises from no other source than from madness of soul, from hatred of mankind, and from arrogance.

Do you not see how vast the earth is? How the air, how the heaven, exceed our need by far? For in order to quench your greed, God brought forth His creatures in such abundant measure.

Yet even so you snatch away, and though you hear that covetousness is idolatry, not even then do you shudder. Do you wish to inherit the earth? But then you have no inheritance in heaven — will you so rob yourself?

Tell me, if someone gave you the power to take everything, would you not have wished it? Well, that possibility is present now, if only you are willing.

And yet some say that they are pained when they must hand on their inheritance to others, and that they would rather have devoured it themselves than see others become its masters.

Not even from this weakness do I set you free;

for this too belongs to a feeble soul;

nevertheless, let even this be done;

in your will leave Christ as your heir.

For this would be the mark of a right disposition;

but even so, though it be under constraint, become more generous.

For Christ commanded us to give to the poor for this very reason: that He might make us lovers of wisdom while we yet live, that He might persuade us to despise riches, that He might teach us to look down on earthly things.

It is no contempt of riches to bestow upon this man and that, when you are dying and are no longer their master;

for you no longer give of what is yours, but out of sheer necessity;

this is not an act of affection, but of grudging spite.

Yet even so let it be done; even then loose the passion.

Whatever you have snatched away, whatever you have gained by covetousness,

give it all back fourfold;

But there are some who have come to such a pitch of madness and blindness that not even then do they perceive what is fitting;

instead, as though they were eager to make God's judgment against themselves the more grievous, they do everything accordingly.

For this reason this blessed one said, writing:

Walk as children of light.

But the covetous man above all lives in darkness, and spreads thick darkness over all things.

And, Have no fellowship, he says, with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them;

for the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.

But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.

Hear me, I beseech you, all you who do not wish to be hated without cause.

He robs, and you do not reprove him? But you dread his hatred.

And yet this is not to be hated without cause;

But you reprove justly, and yet you dread the hatred? Reprove your brother, take upon yourself his enmity for the sake of the love toward Christ, for the sake of the love toward him;

hold him back as he goes down into the pit.

For to share a table, kind words, greetings, and enjoyment together, is no great token of friendship.

Let us bestow such gifts as these upon our friends, that we may draw their souls away from the wrath of God;

when we see them lying in the furnace of wickedness, let us raise them up.

But he is not being set right, someone says.

But do your own part, and you will have made your defense to God.

For this you have reason, for this a tongue and a mouth, that you may set your neighbor right.

The irrational beasts alone take no thought for their neighbor, nor do they have any regard for the others;

but you, who call God Father and see your neighbor as a brother, when you behold him doing countless evils — will you set the favor you receive from Him above his benefit? Do not so, I beseech you.

There is no such proof of friendship as not to overlook one's brethren when they sin.

Have you seen men at enmity? Reconcile them.

Have you seen men acting covetously? Hold them back.

Have you seen men being wronged? Stand up for them;

you have shown kindness not to them, but first of all to yourself.

For this reason we are friends, that we may benefit one another.

A man will hear one way from a friend, and quite another way from a mere passerby;

the chance acquaintance he will perhaps regard with suspicion, and the teacher likewise, but the friend no longer.

For the things done in secret, he says, it is a shame even to speak of.

But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.

What does he mean to say here? He says this: that some of our sins here are done in secret, and some also openly;

for there is no one who is not conscious to himself of some sin.

But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.

What then? Is this said here also concerning idolatry, someone asks? No, but the discourse is about conduct and about sins.

For everything that is made manifest, he says, is light.

Wherefore, I beseech you, neither shrink you from reproving, nor take it ill to be reproved.

For as long as anything is done in darkness, it is done with greater impunity;

but when it has many to bear witness to what is done, it is brought to light.

Wherefore above all let us do everything so as to drive away the deadness of our brethren, so as to scatter the darkness, so as to draw on the Sun of righteousness.

For if the lights be many, the way of virtue will be easy for them, and those in darkness will the more readily be caught, as the light is intensified and makes that darkness vanish.

But if the contrary, there is fear lest these too be quenched, when the thickness that comes from the darkness and from sins prevails over the light and drives away its transparency.

As therefore men who benefit ourselves, so let us be disposed, that through all things we may send up glory to the God who loves mankind, by His grace and love toward men, and so forth.