Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 6 part 2/2

Paul gave command, persuading us to shun foolish talking and jesting.

And what is more grievous than these, the very subject-matter of the laughter is base.

For whenever the mimes of those laughter-makers utter something blasphemous or shameful, then many of the more senseless laugh and take delight; and for the very things for which they ought to have stoned them, for these they applaud, and by this pleasure they draw down the furnace of fire upon their own heads.

For those who praise the ones who say such things are the very people who most persuade them to say them;

wherefore they would more justly be liable to the punishment that is laid up for these things.

For if there were no one to behold such things, neither would there be anyone to contend in them;

but when they see you abandoning your workshops and crafts and the income from them, and everything alike, for the sake of loitering there, they receive greater eagerness, and take more pains about these things.

And I say this not to acquit them of blame, but that you may learn that you above all are the ones who furnish the beginning and root of such lawlessness—you who spend the whole day upon these things, who make a spectacle of the venerable estate of marriage, and hold up to ridicule the great mystery.

For not so much is he who acts out these things the offender, as you, before him, who bid these things be done;

or rather, not only bidding, but also taking pains, and rejoicing, and laughing, and praising the things that are done, and in every way lending support to such workshops of the demons.

With what eyes, tell me, will you thereafter look upon your wife at home, having seen womankind outraged there? And how do you not blush when you remember your consort, whenever you behold nature itself made a public spectacle? (8)

For do not tell me this, that the things done are but a play-acting;

for this very play-acting has made many adulterers, and has overturned many households.

And for this above all do I groan, that the thing done is not even thought to be evil, but there are applause and shouting and much laughter, while so great an adultery is being dared.

What do you say? That the things done are a play-acting? Nay, for this very reason those men would be worthy of ten thousand deaths, because the very things which all the laws bid us flee, these they have been eager to imitate.

For if the thing itself is an evil, then the imitation of it is also an evil.

And I have not yet spoken of how many adulterers those who act out such dramas of adultery produce, how they render the spectators of such things bold and shameless;

for nothing is more lustful and more brazen than an eye that endures to look upon such things.

But you would not choose to see a woman stripped naked in the marketplace—nay, not even in a house—but you even call the thing an outrage;

yet you go up to the theatre, that you may outrage the common race of men and women, and put your own eyes to shame? For do not say this, that she who is stripped is a harlot, but rather that the nature is the same and the body is the same, both of the harlot and of the free woman.

For if this be nothing strange, why is it that, when you see it happening in the marketplace, you yourself leap away and drive off her who so misbehaves? Or is it that when we are apart, then such a thing is strange,

but when we are gathered together and all sitting side by side, it is no longer shameful in like manner? Nay, these are matters of laughter and reproach, and words of utmost madness;

and it were better to smear one's whole face with mud and mire than to behold such lawlessness.

For mire does not so harm the eye as a licentious sight and the beholding of a woman stripped naked.

Hear then what it was that brought about nakedness in the beginning, and be afraid of the origin of such indecency.

What then brought about the nakedness? Disobedience, and the counsel of the devil.

Thus from above and from the beginning, this pursuit has been his own doing.

But those first ones at least were ashamed at being naked;

you, however, even glory in it, according to that apostolic saying, having your glory in your shame.

How then, thereafter, will your wife look upon you when you return from such lawlessness? How will she receive you? How will she address you, when you have so dishonourably made a public spectacle of the common estate of womankind, and become a captive and slave, by reason

of such a sight, to the harlot woman? But if you grieve to hear these things, I am very grateful to you;

for who is it that gladdens me, if not the one who is grieved by me? Cease not, then, ever to groan over these things and to be stung by them;

for the pain arising from such things will be for you a prelude of a change unto the better.

For this reason I too have made my discourse more vehement, that by giving a deeper incision, I might rid you of the rottenness of the things that intoxicate you;

that I might lead you back to the pure health of the soul;

which may it be granted that we all enjoy in all things, and attain the prizes laid up for these right achievements, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the might unto the ages of ages.