The blessed evangelist, when lately he described the life and the end of the inhuman rich man, moved and saddened our human affections; but today, by recounting the humanity and faith of Zacchaeus the rich man, he has raised us up to heavenly things and advanced us unto joy. 'And having entered,' he says, 'Jesus was passing through Jericho' (Luke 19). Why 'passing through,' not 'walking through'? Because what Moses had walked, Christ was passing through; and the people whom Moses led into the way, Jesus brought through to the rest of the promised abode. 'He was passing through Jericho.' Jericho is that very city which Joshua son of Nun overthrew with the sevenfold blast of trumpets (Josh. 6).
But because Christ came to save what had perished, He enters Jericho, that what the law had cast down with terrible outcry, Jesus might raise up with the cry of loving preaching. 'Jesus,' he says, 'having entered, was passing through Jericho; and behold, a man named Zacchaeus, and he was chief of the publicans, and he himself was rich.' Zacchaeus, chief of the publicans in a lost city, of a lost work, is recorded to have exercised a chieftaincy; from his place, his person, his office, the greatness of his guilt is shown, that from the greatness of the crime the greatness of the One remitting might shine forth. 'And he sought to see Jesus.' Let him who seeks to see Christ gaze upon heaven, whence Christ is, not upon earth, whence gold is. The rich man, therefore, who looks upward, does not carry his riches, but tramples them underfoot;
nor is he bowed down by his riches, but is lifted up; and he drives his riches to the service of the Giver, not to the slavery of the avarice of riches; the covetous man is the slave of riches, not their master; but the merciful man proves that he has as many servants as coins. 'He sought to see Jesus, and he could not for the crowd, because he was little of stature.' Great enough in soul was this man, who seemed little in body; for in mind he touched the heavens, who in body did not match other men. Let no one, then, be anxious about the shortness of his body, to which he can add nothing; but let him take care to be eminent in faith. 'And running ahead, he climbed up into a tree.' By what steps, think you, did this man reach the branches of the loftiest tree?
This man trod the earth underfoot, climbed above gold, transcended avarice, and stepped over the whole mass of riches, that, leaping up into the tree of pardon, he might lay hold of the fruit of mercy, and from the watchtower of confession might behold the Bestower of pardon. 'He climbed up into a sycamore tree.' By mystery, not by chance; he climbed up into a sycamore tree, that whence Adam had covered the nakedness of the body, Zacchaeus might thence veil the foulness of avarice. He climbed up into a sycamore tree, that he might see Jesus, because He was to pass that way. Truly he said 'about to pass,' because Christ had come by earthly ways and human labors not to remain, but had come to pass through. 'But when Jesus had come to the place, looking up He saw him.'
As though, had He not turned His eyes thither, He would not have seen—He who, when Nathanael was absent, saw him afar off under the same tree (John 1): but He saw him, saw him unto pardon, looked upon him unto grace, gave heed unto life, contemplated him unto salvation. God does not desire to recognize, as one ignorant, the one He sees, but, as one who knows, He wills to look upon him unto glory. 'He saw him, and said to him: Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide in thy house.' If he had climbed up well, why is it said to him, 'Come down'? He said above: 'Running ahead, he climbed the tree.' The servant runs before the Lord, and Zacchaeus climbed the tree before the Master ascended the cross; hence it is said to him: 'Make haste, come down.' If you are wise, make haste, come down:
come down before the Lord from the Adamic tree, that after the cross of the Lord's passion you may ascend. 'Unless a man take up his cross and follow Me' (Matt. 10); He did not say, 'go before Me.' Come down, therefore, that you may lay aside the burdens of so great fraud, the weights of cupidity, the mass of usuries, the mastership of the publican, the chieftaincy of most cruel exaction, and, unencumbered, may enter the school of poverty, the discipleship of mercy, the practice of piety, the discipline of patience, the pursuits of the virtues, the knowledge of divinity, the endurance of sufferings, the philosophy of death, and, perfected, may ascend amid the heights of the tree of life. 'Come down, because today I must abide in thy house.' He into whose house Christ has not entered will not attain to the divine abode;
and he at whose table Christ has not here reclined will not recline at the heavenly table. 'And making haste he came down, and received Him rejoicing.' He rejoices, because he received his own Receiver, because he feeds his own Shepherd, because the guilty man by the good office of hospitality inclines the Judge, because by the loan of food and drink he makes and acquires his own Debtor for himself; and so it comes to pass that this publican does not lose his gain, but exchanges it. 'And when they saw it,' he says, 'all murmured, saying that He had turned aside to a sinful man.' And who is without sin? And if no one, he himself denies himself pardon, who accuses God for entering in to sinners. God, when He seeks the sinner, seeks not the sins, but the man: that the sin,
which is the work of man, He may despise, that His own work, which is man, He may not lose. Hear the prophet saying: 'Turn away Thy face from my sins' (Ps. 50), that is, from my works. But of himself: 'Despise not the works of Thy hands' (Ps. 137). The judge, when he wills to pardon, looks upon the man, not upon the fault; the father, when he wills to have mercy on his son, thinks upon his affection, not upon the offense: thus in man God is mindful of His own work, so that He forgets the human work. You, therefore, who reprehend, who murmur why Christ turned aside to a sinner, take from such an entering the way of salvation, the example of pardon, the hope of mercy, and beware lest this become for you matter of blasphemy, which is for you an occasion of salvation. Whither the physician, save to the sick?
'They that are well,' he says, 'need not a physician, but they that are sick' (Matt. 9). Whither the panting shepherd, save to the lost sheep? When does the king mingle with his enemies, save when he wills to free a captive? And he who loses a precious pearl does not disdain to enter squalid places, and shrinks not from searching for it even amid the very dung. Into what headlong danger does not a mother cast herself after her child? And is God reproached—He who created man to His own image and likeness (Gen. 1)—because with a creator's charity He seeks man amid his sins? You murmur, O man, why God seeks man amid his sins: what will you do when you see Him, for man's sake, penetrate the very darkness of Tartarus? Yet hear what Christ did on entering in to the sinner.
'Standing,' he says, 'Zacchaeus said'—you see how he who was lying down was raised up. We lie in vices, and we lie oppressed; we stand when, by good works, we are lifted up unto advancement. 'Standing,' he says, 'Zacchaeus said: The half of my goods I give to the poor.' This man believed he would live after death, who now sends on ahead to the road the half of his goods for the time to come. Though he alone is perfect who always sends on ahead from here the whole of what he has to that place where he is to live; yet this man too is a partner of the virtues, a consort of prudence, a sharer of faith, who sends to God even the half, because a man loses what he leaves behind here. And in truth, brethren, just as this man believes that he lives there, who sends thither his own;
so he does not believe that he is to live there, who has prepared for himself nothing that he ought to have there. For if we can scarcely bear temporal poverty, who will endure to become a beggar for eternity? Who, waging war, does not send to his homeland whatever he wins by the sweat of battle, that a delightful old age may compensate the labors of youth? And the Christian, for whom to wage war is this very thing—to live in the world—how does he not take thought to console earthly perils with heavenly leisure? How the Christian should do these things, Zacchaeus himself both teaches by word and shows by example. 'The half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by fraud, I restore fourfold.'
He who lays out what belongs to another plunders more by giving than by stealing; nor does he thereby check the groans of the grieving, but prolongs them. I dare to say: he who offers to God from fraud heaps up crimes, does not cleanse them away; for God, in such a gift, looks upon the spoils of His own poor, not upon acts of mercy. In vain does he weep to God, against whom the cause of the poor man justly weeps to God. It is the voice of God: 'If thou take thy brother's tunic in pledge, before sunset thou shalt restore it to him' (Exod. 22). As the lamp betrays the thief, so the sun accuses those who are defrauded. If we wish to offer God our own, if we wish before God to possess what is ours, let us also deserve to hear such things as Zacchaeus heard: 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.'
The inhuman rich man, though he was a son of Abraham, was made a son of Gehenna; this man, though he was a son of rapine, by giving his own and restoring what belonged to another, is adopted as a son of Abraham. Yet let no one suppose that Zacchaeus, by offering the half of his goods, held the summit of perfection—he who, after all his goods, so gave even himself to the Lord that, upheld by the honor of the episcopate, he might pass from the publican's table of gain to the table of the Lord's Body; and, forsaking the fraudulent riches of the world, might in the poverty of Christ find the true riches of the world.