Homilies on Philippians 5

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,

fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;

let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves;

look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

There is nothing better, nothing more tenderly loving, than a spiritual teacher.

He surpasses the goodwill of any natural father.

See then what a supplication this blessed man offers to the Philippians on behalf of the things profitable to them.

For what does he say, exhorting them to concord, which is the cause of all good things? See how earnestly, how vehemently, how with much sympathy.

'If there be therefore any consolation in Christ,' he says.

That is, if you have any consolation in Christ.

If you have any regard for my word, if you have any care for me, if ever you received any kindness from me, do this thing.

Now we employ this manner of appeal when we are asking on behalf of some matter which we prize above all things.

For unless we prized it above all things, we should not have wished to receive in it the recompense for all, nor should we have said that in it the whole was shown.

Now we for our part remind men of fleshly claims.

As if a father should say to his son:

'If you have any reverence for your father, if any remembrance of your upbringing, if any of the affection you owe me, if any of the honour you received from me, if any goodwill, be not an enemy to your brother.'

That is, 'In return for all those things I ask this one recompense.'

For he reminds them of nothing fleshly, but of all things spiritual.

And what he says is of this sort:

'If you wish to give me any consolation in my trials, and encouragement in Christ, if any comfort of love, if you would show me any fellowship in the Spirit, if you have any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy.'

'If any bowels and mercies.'

Paul calls the concord of his disciples his own mercies, showing that the danger lies at the last extremity, if they be not of one mind.

'If it be possible,' he says, 'to obtain consolation from you, if it be possible to obtain from your love some comfort, if it be possible for you to share in the Spirit, if it be possible for you to share in the Lord, if it be possible to be pitied and shown compassion by you—then show the requital of all these things in love.'

'All these things have I obtained, if ye love one another.'

See, that the exhortation might not seem to have been made as to those who were still lacking, he did not say, 'Make for me,' but, 'Fulfil.'

That is, 'You have begun to plant in me, you have already imparted to me your being at peace, but I desire to come to the end.'

'What do you wish, tell me, that we should deliver you from dangers? that we should supply you with something?' 'None of these things,' he says, 'but that ye be of the same mind, having the same love wherein ye began, being of one accord, of one mind.'

Oh, how many times he says the same thing, out of much affection!

'That ye be of the same mind,' he says; or rather, 'that ye be of one mind.'

For this he made clear as he went on, saying, 'being of one mind';

which is greater than the 'same.'

'Having the same love';

that is, not simply in respect of faith only, but also in all other things.

For it is possible both to be of the same mind and yet not to have love.

'Having the same love';

that is, alike both to love and to be loved.

Do not you enjoy much love, while furnishing less to others, that in this too you may be a grasping person.

For if some do this, yet do not you tolerate it.

That is, making the bodies of all your own with one soul—not in substance (for that is not possible), but in purpose and in mind;

so that all things may proceed as from one soul.

What does 'of one soul' mean? He made it plain when he said, 'being of one mind.'

Let there be one purpose, as though of a single soul.

He goes on to require it, and tells the manner, how this might come to pass.

'Doing nothing through faction or vainglory,' he says.

This is what I am always saying: that this is the cause of all evils.

From this come strifes and contentions; from this come envyings and rivalries; from this comes the cooling of love—whenever we are in love with the glory of men, whenever we are slaves to the honour of the many.

For it is not possible that one who is a slave to glory should also be a genuine slave of God.

'How then are we to flee vainglory?' one says; 'for you have not yet told the way.'

But by lowliness of mind, he says, 'each esteeming others as surpassing themselves.'

Wonderful! How he has set forth a doctrine full of all wisdom, and the very framework of our salvation!

If you suppose, he says, that such a one is greater than you, and persuade yourself of this—or rather not only say it but be fully assured of it—then you render him honour too.

And if you render him honour, you will not be vexed at seeing him honoured by another.

Do not therefore simply think him to be greater than yourself, but even to surpass you—which is a mark of vehement excess—and you will not be startled at seeing him honoured, nor will you grieve.

And even if he should insult you, you will bear it nobly.

For you have accounted him greater than yourself.

If he revile you, you submit; if he do you evil, you endure in silence.

For when once the soul is fully assured that he is greater, it does not fall into anger in whatever evils it may suffer from him, nor into envy.

For no one would envy those who greatly surpass him.

For he counts everything as belonging to that superiority.

Here then he trains this one to be so disposed.

But when that other man too, he says—the one who enjoys such honour from you—is likewise disposed toward you, consider what a double wall of forbearance this is.

For when you meanwhile hold him worthy of honour, and he does the same, nothing will ever be a cause of grief.

For if this, when done by the one alone, suffices to dissolve all wrangling, when it is done by both, who shall break through this security? Not even the devil himself.

For the bulwark will be threefold, and fourfold, and many times as strong.

For humility is the cause of all good things.

And that you may learn this, hear the prophet saying: 'If you had desired sacrifice, I would have given it;

you will not delight in whole burnt offerings.'

'The sacrifice for God is a broken spirit;

a broken and a humbled heart God will not despise.'

And he does not simply require humility, but an intensity of humility.

For just as with bodies, that which is bruised would never rise up against what is hard, but however dreadful the things it suffers, it will sooner perish itself than proceed against another;

so also with the soul: it will choose rather to suffer evil continually and to die, than to retaliate and take vengeance.

How long shall we puff ourselves up with a puffing worthy of laughter? For just as we laugh at little children when we see them stretching themselves up and giving themselves airs, or laugh again when they lift a stone and hurl it back;

such is human presumption, being the offspring of a childish mind and an immature understanding.

For why does earth and

ashes exalt itself? You think great things, O man? Why? What is the gain, tell me? And whence do you think great things against your own kind? Do you not share the same nature? The same soul? Are you not honoured alike by God? But you are wise? Then you ought to give thanks, not to be puffed up.

The first form of ingratitude is presumption;

for it takes away the gift from the benefaction.

For he who is lifted up is lifted up as one who has himself achieved it;

but he who thinks he has achieved it is ungrateful toward the One who gave the honour.

Have you some good thing? Give thanks to the One who gave it.

Hear what Joseph says, and what Daniel says.

For when the king of Egypt sent for him out of the prison, and inquired of him in a matter concerning his whole army, in which all the Egyptians—those most skilled in such things—had given way; when he himself was about to surpass them all in every respect, and to appear wiser than the astrologers, the soothsayers, the enchanters, the magicians, and all the philosophers of that time—he, a young man, coming out of captivity and slavery (for then the glory was the greater;

for it is not the same thing to shine when one is expected to, and to shine beyond all expectation;

so that the very fact that it was beyond hope made him the more admirable)—

what then did this man say when he came forward to Pharaoh? Did he say, 'Yes, I know'? Not so;

but what? Though no one was pressing him, out of great humility of mind what does he say? 'Is not their interpretation through God?' Behold;

he straightway glorified the Master;

and for this reason he too was glorified.

And this is no small thing in respect of glory;

for the fact that God revealed it is far greater than that he himself achieved it.

And besides, he thereby showed his words to be worthy of belief, and this is the greatest token of his intimacy with God.

For nothing is so good as to be made intimate with God.

'For if he was justified by works,' he says, 'he has whereof to boast, but not before God.'

For if he who is counted worthy of grace boasts in God because he is loved—since it was granted to him—then he who works also has boasting, but not before God, as that other does;

for this is a proof of our great weakness;

how much more admirable, then, would he be who has received even wisdom from God? He glorified God, and was glorified by Him;

'For those who glorify Me,' He says, 'I will glorify.'

Again his descendant, than whom none was wiser ('For are you wiser,' he says, 'than Daniel?')—this Daniel, then, wiser than all the wise men in Babylon, and than the very astrologers, soothsayers, magicians, enchanters, and all philosophy;

which was not only refuted but even utterly abolished (for its being abolished was a proof that it had before deceived them)—coming forward and about to unfold the riddle, he too does not preen himself, but first ascribes the whole to God, and says:

'But as for me, this was revealed not through any wisdom that is in me beyond all men, O king.'

'And the king did obeisance to him, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and a libation.'

Do you see humility? Do you see gratitude? Do you see a disposition free of pride? Hear also the apostles, saying at one time, 'Why do you gaze upon us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man to walk?' and at another again, 'We also are men of like passions with you.'

And if those men thus repelled honours that were offered to them—men who wrought works greater than Christ's through Christ's humility, and through His power ('For he who believes on Me,' He says, 'shall do greater works than those I do')—

how are those men not wretched and miserable who cannot so much as scare away gnats, much less demons; who have not strength to help even a single man, much less the whole world, and yet think of themselves as highly as not even the devil himself does?

Nothing is so foreign to a Christian soul as presumption;

I say presumption, not boldness nor manly courage;

for this is one thing, and that is another;

so that humility is one thing, and servility and flattery and [meanness] another.

And, if you wish, I will set before you examples of all these.

For in some way contraries seem to grow up alongside one another, as the tares beside the wheat, and the thorns beside the rose.

But whereas children might easily be deceived, those who are truly men, being versed in spiritual husbandry, know how to distinguish what is truly good from what is evil.

Come then, let us set before you examples of these things drawn from the Scriptures.

What then is flattery, and servility, and fawning? Ziba flattered David unseasonably, and slandered his own master;

or rather, it was Ahithophel who flattered Absalom.

But David was not such a man; rather he was humble-minded.

For flatterers are men of guile;

as, for instance, when the magi said, 'O king, live for ever.'

And in the case of Paul in the Acts we shall find many such instances, when he reasons with the Jews, not flattering, but being humble-minded;

for he knew also how to speak with boldness;

as when he says, 'Men and brethren, though I had done nothing against the people or the customs of the fathers, yet was I delivered a prisoner from Jerusalem.'

That these were words of humility, hear how he rebukes them in what follows, saying thus:

'Well spoke the Holy Spirit:

"By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and in no wise perceive."'

Have you seen courage? Behold too the courage of John the Baptist, which he used toward Herod, saying:

'It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother Philip's wife.'

This is boldness, this is courage;

but not that of Shimei, when he said, 'Come out, thou man of blood;'

and yet he too spoke boldly.

But this is not courage; it is rashness and insolence and an unbridled tongue.

Jezebel also insulted Jehu, saying;

but that was rashness, not boldness.

Elijah too reproached, yet it was boldness and courage;

'For it is not I that trouble the people, but thou and thy father's house.'

Again Elijah spoke boldly to a whole assembly, saying:

'How long halt ye upon both your knees?' This is boldness and courage—to reprove;

this also the prophets did;

but that other was rashness.

Would you see words also of humility and of freedom? Hear Paul saying:

'But to me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's day;

yea, I judge not mine own self.'

'For I know nothing against myself;

yet am I not hereby justified.'

This is a temper befitting a Christian.

And again, 'Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?' Would you see the flattery of the foolish Jews? Hear them saying, 'We have no king but Caesar.'

Would you see humility? Hear Paul again saying:

'For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.'

Would you see both flattery and rashness—the rashness of Nabal, and the flattery of the Ziphites; and how the one reviled, while the others betrayed David in their purpose? Would you see wisdom, and not flattery, in David—how he took Saul and yet spared him? Would you see the flattery of those who slew Mephibosheth, whom David also put to death? But to speak simply, and as it were in outline, in sum: rashness is when a man is angry and insolent over what does not concern him, either avenging himself, or being unjustly bold;

but boldness and courage is when a man dares to face dangers and death, and disregards friendship and enmity for the sake of what is pleasing to God.

Again, flattery and servility is when a man courts certain persons for none of the things that are needful, but hunting after something belonging to this life;

but humility is when a man does this for the sake of what is pleasing to God, and, in order to accomplish something great and wonderful, descends from his own dignity.

If we know these things, blessed are we, if we do them.

'For not the hearers of the law,' he says, 'but the doers of the law' shall be justified.

Rather, knowledge even condemns us, when it is apart from action and from good deeds.

In order, therefore, that we may escape condemnation, let us set about the doing, that we may attain the good things that have been promised, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.