For this we add to our crimes—that although we are guilty in all things, we yet believe ourselves to be good and holy; and thus in us the offences of iniquity are heaped up even by the presumption of righteousness. He who hates, says the Apostle, his brother, is a murderer. We can understand, therefore, that there are many murderers who think themselves innocent; because, as we see, murder is committed not only by the slaying hand, but also by the hating mind. Whence it is that the Saviour heaped up the standard of this commandment with a still severer censure, saying: He who is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment. Anger is the mother of hatred. And therefore the Saviour willed to shut out anger, lest from anger hatred should be born.
If, therefore, not only hatred but even anger will make us guilty in God's judgment, we plainly recognize that, just as absolutely no one is immune from wrath, so absolutely no one will be able to be immune from guilt. Moreover, the Lord pursues, as it were, the very fibres of this precept and cuts away all the shoots and little branches down to the root, saying: But whoever shall say, You fool, shall be liable to the fire of Gehenna; whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to the council. Many do not know what kind of insult 'Raca' is; but they know very well how injuriously the charge of foolishness is flung. And therefore men, using their knowledge rather than their ignorance, prefer their guilt to be expiated by that reviling which they know, in the divine fires, rather than by that which they do not know, in human councils. III.
Since these things are so, and since all these things which are commanded by the Lord are not only not done by us at all, but almost everything is done in the opposite way, when shall we do those greater things? For he who, says the Saviour, does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be my disciple. And he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. And whoever calls himself a Christian ought, just as Christ walked, so also himself to walk. It is certain that these things are fulfilled not only not by those who follow the pleasures and pomps of the world, but not even by those who abandon worldly affections.
For even those who seem to renounce riches do not renounce them in such a way as to seem to have renounced them utterly; and those who are thought to carry the cross carry it in such a way that they have more of dignity in the name of the cross than of suffering in its torment. And yet all these, even if they fulfilled some of these things in good faith, none of them without doubt would achieve this—to walk through the way of this life just as the Saviour walked. For he who says, says the Apostle, that he abides in Christ ought, just as Christ walked, so also himself to walk. IIII. But some perhaps think the precepts of the apostles hard. They are plainly to be esteemed hard, if they exact more of duties from others than they take upon themselves.
But on the contrary, if they commanded far less to others than to themselves, they are to be judged not only as no severe masters but as most indulgent parents, who by the indulgence of love take the burdens off the necks of their sons and lay them upon themselves through the affection of religion. For what does one of them say to the ecclesiastical peoples? My little children, he says, of whom I am again in travail, until Christ be formed in you. And again: Be imitators, he says, of me, as I also of Christ. He commands this to us—that we imitate him—who had commanded this to himself, that he be an imitator of Christ. And indeed, that he himself imitated Christ, is doubtful to no one. For Christ subjected Himself to the world for us, and he himself for Christ:
Christ for us bore the heaviest weariness and toils, and he too this same for Christ; Christ for us suffered insults, and he too this same for Christ; Christ for us endured passion and death, and he too this same for Christ. And therefore not without cause, conscious of his own merits, he says: I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith; for the rest there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. And so, since he imitated Christ thus, let us see which of us appears an imitator of the Apostle. For he writes of himself first, that he never gave offence to anyone, but in all things showed himself as a minister of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in necessities, in stripes, in prisons, in lacerations.
And elsewhere, comparing himself with others, he says thus: In whatever anyone dares—I speak in foolishness—I dare too; to speak as less wise, I more so: in very many labours, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes beyond measure, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck. Truly, even if we do nothing of the other apostolic virtues he named, yet in this one thing, where the Apostle said he suffered shipwreck three times, we can even surpass him. For we have suffered shipwreck not merely three times, we whose whole life is almost a shipwreck; for indeed all live so viciously that there is scarcely any Christian who does not seem to be continually shipwrecked. V.
But someone will perhaps say that it is not now the time for us to suffer for Christ the things the apostles then suffered. It is true; for there are no pagan rulers, no tyrant persecutors, no blood of the saints is shed, nor is faith proved by tortures. Our God is content that our peace should serve Him, that we should please Him by the sole purity of unstained deeds and by the sanctity of an uncontaminated life. Whereby our faith and devotion owe Him the more, because He exacts lesser things of us and has granted greater. And therefore, since the rulers are Christian, and there is no persecution, and religion is not disturbed, we who are not compelled to prove our faith by harder trials ought, at least by inferior services, to please the Lord the more.
For he proves, even in greater things, should the matter demand it, that he will be a fit executor, by whom lesser things are fulfilled. VI. Let us pass over, then, those things which the most blessed Paul endured—nay rather, those things which we read afterwards, in the books written about religion, that absolutely all Christians endured, who, ascending to the door of the heavenly palace by the steps of their sufferings, made for themselves ladders, as it were, out of racks and instruments of torture. Let us see whether at least in those services of religious devotion which are lesser and common—which all we Christians can perform in the utmost tranquillity and at all times—we attempt to answer to the Lord's precepts. Christ bids us not to litigate. Who obeys the command?
Nor does He merely bid it, but bids it to such a degree that He commands us to give up the very things over which the dispute is, provided only we be stripped of lawsuits. If anyone, He says, wishes to contend with you in court and take your tunic, leave him your cloak also. I ask who they are who yield to adversaries who plunder them—nay rather, who they are who do not try to plunder their adversaries. For so far are we from leaving other things along with our tunics, that, if in any way we can, we would take from our adversaries both cloak and tunics together. So devoutly do we obey the Lord's commands, that it does not suffice us not to yield to our adversaries even the smallest part of our garments, unless, as far as in us lies, if the matter allow, we snatch everything from them.
Moreover, to this precept is joined a like and similar command, by which the Lord says: Whoever strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other also. How many do we think there are who would even modestly lend their ears to this saying, or who, even if they seem to do it, are at peace in their minds? Or how rare is anyone who, if he receives one blow, does not return many for one? So far is he from offering his cheek to the striker, that he then thinks himself the victor, not when he has overcome his adversary by being beaten, but when by beating. Whatever you wish, says the Saviour, that men should do to you, the same do you also to them likewise. One part of this sentence we know so well that we never pass it by; the other part we pass over as though we knew it not at all.
For what we would wish to be rendered to us by others we know very well, but what we ourselves owe to render to others we do not know. And would that we did not know! Less would be the guilt of ignorance, according to that saying: He who knows not his master's will shall be beaten with few stripes; but he who knows and does not do it shall be beaten with many. But now this is the greater offence, that we love the part of the sacred sentence for the advantage of our own conveniences, and pass over the part to God's injury. This word of God the Apostle Paul also amplifies by the office of his preaching, saying: Let no one seek his own, but that which is another's. And again: Not each considering his own things, he says, but those which are others'. You see how faithfully the precept of Christ was carried out:
For whereas the Saviour bade us think for others just as for ourselves, he bade us take counsel for others' conveniences more than for our own—a good servant, of course, of a good Lord, and a distinguished imitator of his singular Master, who, walking in the footsteps of his Lord, made, as it were, more open and more expressed with his own feet the footsteps of his Lord. What, then, of these do we Christians do—what Christ or what the Apostle commands? I think, plainly, neither. For so far are we from rendering anything to others' conveniences with our own inconvenience, that we all above all take counsel for our own conveniences to others' harm. VII.
But we may perhaps seem to choose the greater things, which no one fulfils and which, as they themselves think, cannot be fulfilled at all, and to pass over the others, which both can be fulfilled and which He commands of all. But first this must be considered: that no servant is permitted, out of those things which his master commands, to choose at his own discretion what he wishes to do and what not, and, by a most insolent abuse, to take up what has pleased him and reject what has displeased him—especially since even earthly masters by no means think it to be borne with equanimity, if their servants hear their orders in part and despise them in part, and do at their own whim what they have thought should be done, and trample on what they have thought should be trampled.
For if servants obey their masters at their own discretion, then not even in those things in which they have obeyed do they render obedience. For when a servant does out of his master's commands only those things which he wishes to do, he now fulfils not his master's will but his own. If, therefore, we, who are feeble little men, nevertheless are utterly unwilling to be despised by our servants—whom, though the condition of servitude makes inferior to us, the human lot yet makes our equals—how unjustly do we despise the heavenly Lord, we who, though we ourselves are men, yet think ourselves not to be despised by men of our own condition.
Unless perhaps we are of such great counsel and such profound understanding that we, who are unwilling to suffer the injuries of servants, wish God to be subjected to our injuries, and believe that God worthily bears from us those things which we ourselves believe unworthy to be borne by a human being. And through this, if there are any—to return to what is above—who think we speak of God's greater precepts and keep silent about the lesser, they are to be understood to complain superfluously; for there is no ground why some should be brought forward, where all things are to be done.
For just as it is by no means permitted to the servants of carnal masters to choose, as I have said, which of their masters' precepts they will do and which they will not, so we, who are the servants of our Lord, ought to esteem it utterly unlawful either to take up those things which please us for the delight of the soul, or to trample under foot those things which displease us by the abuse of pride. VIII. But let us nevertheless yield to those who perhaps do not wish us to speak of greater things out of the Lord's precepts, because they think themselves to fulfil the lesser—not because it suffices for salvation, if, spurning the greater, we do the lesser, according to that saying: Whoever shall have kept the whole Law, but offends in one point, is made guilty of all.
And through this, although it does not suffice for us to do small and least things, yet I nevertheless yield to speaking of the lesser, that I may show that the greatest part of all Christians have not done even the scanty and least things. Our Saviour bade that Christian men should not swear. You will find more who very often perjure themselves than who do not swear at all. He also bade that no one should curse. Whose speech is not a curse? For the first weapons of anger are always curses, and whatever we, being feeble, cannot do, we wish for, being angry; and thus in every motion of indignant souls we use evil wishes for weapons. Whence each man most plainly proves that whatever he wishes to happen to his adversaries, he would wish to do all of it, if he could.
But evidently, because we all easily use this wickedness of tongues, we who do not obey the Lord's commands, therefore we think this to be an easy thing even before God, who commanded: Revilers, says the divine word, shall not possess the kingdom of God. From this, then, we can understand how grave and pernicious cursing is, when, even if other things be good, it alone shuts out from heaven. Christ bade envy be far from us. But we, on the contrary, envy not only strangers but even our neighbours, and drench with malice not only our enemies but even our friends. So nearly does this evil reign in the sense of all; so does the lust of hungering have a limit, but the lust of disparaging have no limit;
for we are indeed sated with food, but never with disparagement. But the penalty of this fault is perhaps light. The disparager, says holy Scripture, shall be rooted out. A grave and terrible punishment indeed; but nevertheless no correction. For provided each man do not cease to tear another to pieces, he reckons it so worthwhile that he does not spare even himself. But a fitting recompense indeed for this evil is that which pursues only its author; for it harms nothing at all him whom it disparages, but punishes only the one from whose mouth it proceeds. But we seem, I suppose, to rave by repeating these things—and I bear it that we should seem to rave. Did the Lord rave, who commanded: Let all clamour, He says through His Apostle, be taken away from you, with all malice?
Both of these indeed continually persist in us, but malice more than clamour. For clamour is not always in our mouths, but malice always in our hearts; and through this I think that, even if clamour should cease in us, yet malice would remain. Our God also commanded us to be without murmuring and complaint. When were these not present in the human race? If it is hot, we complain of the dryness; if it rains, we lament the flooding; if the year is less fruitful, we accuse the barrenness; if more fruitful, the cheapness. We desire to attain abundance, and having attained it we accuse it. What can be said more wicked, more insulting, than this? Even in this we complain of God's mercy, because He grants what we ask.
God has commanded that from His servants every occasion of stumbling, even that of the eyes, be entirely absent; and therefore, He says, 'if any man look upon a woman to lust after her, he hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.' From this we can fully understand how chaste the Saviour has bidden us to be, since He has cut off even the license of looking. For knowing that the eyes are, as it were, the windows of our minds, and that all wicked desires enter into the heart through the eyes as through natural passages, He willed to extinguish them utterly on the outside, lest they should arise within and, their fibres growing to a deadly extent, gather strength perhaps in the soul, if they had first sprouted in the sight.
For this reason, then, the Lord says that the wanton glances of unchaste men are not free from the guilt of adultery, namely so that whoever in good faith would flee adultery might guard also his gaze. For the Saviour, wishing to make His worshippers men of perfect and most sincere holiness, commanded that even the smallest things be most carefully avoided by them, that is, that as pure as is the pupil of the eye, so pure should be the life of the Christian man; and that, just as the eye, with the integrity of its sight preserved, admits into itself no stain of dust, so our life should harbour within itself no stain whatsoever of unchastity. Hence also comes that which the Lord says in what follows: 'If thine eye scandalize thee, pluck it out; and if thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off:'
'It is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell.' If, therefore, according to the word of God, we are dragged into hell by occasions of stumbling, then surely, that we may be able to avoid hell, we rightly punish ourselves even in our hands and eyes—not that anyone ought to deprive himself of his own members, but because certain necessary ties of household services are so needful to us that we use them at times as if they were our eyes or hands, we rightly withdraw ourselves from the duties of present ministrations, lest we suffer the torments of eternal fire. For where it is a question of service and of life, it is assuredly more right for a Christian to fall short in service than in life.
And so, since in all these things which we have mentioned our Lord has commanded us to obey Him, where are those who obey God either in all His commandments or at least in the very fewest? Where are those who either love their enemies, or do good to their persecutors, or overcome evil with good; who offer their cheeks to those who strike them; who yield their goods to those who despoil them without a lawsuit? Who is there in whose presence detraction is entirely unlawful; who wounds no one with his reviling; who restrains his mouth with silence, lest it burst forth into the bitterness of cursing? Who is there that does even these least things?—not to speak of those greater matters of which we spoke a little before.
Since these things are so, and since nothing at all of the Lord's command is done by us, what reason have we to complain of God, when God can rather complain of us all? What ground is there that we should grieve at not being heard by God, when we ourselves do not hear God; that we should murmur that the earth is not regarded by God, when we ourselves do not look up to heaven; that it should be grievous that our prayers are despised by the Lord, when His commands are despised by us? Grant that we were the equals of our Lord: what place is there for just complaint, that each should suffer what he has done? Saving the fact that I can easily prove that we by no means suffer those things which we do, and that God deals far more gently with us than we with God—yet meanwhile let us proceed by this same law with which we began.
For thus the Lord Himself also says: 'I called to you, and you did not hear me: and you also shall cry to me, and I will not hearken to you.' For what is more worthy, or what more just? We did not hear, we are not heard; we did not regard, we are not regarded. Who, I ask, among earthly masters is content to deal with his own household by this law, that he should scorn his servants merely because he has himself been scorned by them? And yet we scorn God not only with this injury, by which earthly masters are wont to be scorned by their servants—for this is the greatest contempt of servants, if they do not do what they are commanded. But we, moreover, with all zeal and all effort not only do not do what is commanded, but do the very contrary to what is commanded.
For God commands that we all be dear to one another, yet we all tear one another apart with mutual hostility. God commands that all give of their own to the needy; almost all seize what belongs to others. God commands that everyone who is a Christian keep even his eyes chaste; how rare is the one who does not wallow in the mire of fornication? And why say more? It is grievous and lamentable what I am about to say: the very Church, which ought in all things to be the appeaser of God, what else is it than the provoker of God? Or, apart from a very few who flee evils, what else is almost the whole assembly of Christians than a bilge-pit of vices?
For how few in the Church would you find who are not either a drunkard, or a glutton, or an adulterer, or a fornicator, or a robber, or a rioter, or a brigand, or a murderer? And what is worse than all these, nearly all these things without end. For I appeal to the conscience of all Christians: of these shameful deeds or crimes which we have just named, how few of men are not guilty of some one of them, or how few not of all of them? For you would more easily find one who is guilty of all than one who is guilty of none. And what we have said—'none'—perhaps might seem to belong to too severe a censure: I will say far more:
You would more easily find those guilty of all evils than of not all; more easily of the greater crimes than of the lesser; that is, you would more easily find those who have committed both the greater crimes along with the lesser than those who have committed only the lesser without the greater. For nearly the whole body of the Church has been reduced to such a state of moral baseness that among all the Christian people it is, so to speak, a kind of holiness to be less vicious. And so some hold the churches, or rather the temples and altars of God, in less reverence than the house of any petty and municipal judge.
For within the gates not only of illustrious authorities but even of governors or magistrates, not all presume to enter indiscriminately, but only those whom either the judge has summoned, or business has drawn in, or the very dignity of one's own rank has permitted to enter; so that, if anyone has entered insolently, he is either beaten, or driven out, or punished with some stain to his modesty and reputation. But into the temples, or rather into the altars and sanctuaries of God, all the filthy and shameful men rush in indiscriminately, without any reverence whatsoever for the sacred honour—not because all ought not to hasten to entreat God, but because he who enters to appease Him ought not to go out to exasperate Him:
For it does not belong to one and the same office to beg pardon and to provoke wrath. Indeed it is a ninefold kind of monstrous thing: almost all continually do the very things which they bewail having done; and those who enter the house of the Church to weep over their old evils, go out [to commit new ones]. And why do I say 'go out'? In their very prayers and supplications they are almost devising these things. For the mouths of men do one thing, their hearts another; and while with their words they bewail past evils, in their thoughts they meditate on future ones; and thus their prayer is rather the author of crimes than the entreater of pardon. So that truly that curse of Scripture is fulfilled in them, that they go out condemned from the very prayer, and their prayer be turned into sin.
Finally, if anyone wishes to know what such men have been pondering in the temple, let him observe what follows. For as soon as the solemnities are completed, all straightway run off to their accustomed pursuits: some, that is, to steal, others to get drunk, others to fornicate, others to commit robbery; so that it clearly appears that this is what they had been meditating while they were within the temple—what they carry out after they have gone forth.
But of course some perhaps think that all these evils and all the baseness of vices which I have described above are to be attributed to slaves or to the most abject sort of men, but that the freeborn name is not defiled by this stain of shameful deeds. Yet what else is the life of all traders than fraud and perjury? What else that of the town-councillors than iniquity? What else that of the officials than false accusation? What else that of all soldiers than plunder? But perhaps you think that this too may be applied to persons of that sort. 'For this,' you say, 'is their occupation, and also their profession, and on this account it is no wonder if they do what they profess:'
As though, forsooth, God willed anyone either to do or to profess evil things; or as though there were no offence at all against the sacred Majesty, if lesser persons seem to commit the greatest crime—especially since in this multitude of men by far the greater part of the human race is contained: and beyond doubt, where there is the greater throng of sinners, there is the greater injury to the Godhead. 'But,' you say, 'all the nobility is immune from these crimes.' That indeed is a small thing, since nobility seems to be nothing else in all the world than one man among a great people. But let us see nevertheless whether even that very thing be a small matter—to be free from crime. And first let us consider what the divine word says about men of this kind. For the Apostle of God, rebuking the people, thus speaks: 'Hear, my most beloved brethren:'
'Hath not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love Him? But you have dishonoured the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you by their power? Do not they blaspheme the good name which is invoked upon you?' Weighty is this testimony of the Apostle, unless perhaps the nobles think themselves immune from it because they alone are named 'rich.' But either the nobles are the same as the rich, or, if there are rich apart from the nobles, they too are nevertheless already as it were noble, because so great is the misery of this age that no one is held more noble than he who is most rich. But whether the Apostle spoke of the one or the other, or of both, it can easily be settled from this:
For it makes no difference of which part in particular this was said, since it is certain that it applies to both. For who indeed, whether of the nobles or of the rich, at all shudders at crimes? Although in this I may be mistaken; for many shudder, but very few avoid them. In others, indeed, they shudder at what they themselves always commit—in a wondrous manner both accusers and perpetrators of the same crimes. They publicly execrate what they do in secret; and thereby, while they think they are condemning others, they rather condemn themselves by their own verdict. But let us leave these, who are the more guilty. Who is there, whether rich at all or noble, who either preserves innocence or keeps his hands from all crimes? Although I have said 'from all' superfluously:
Would that they were free even from the greatest crimes—since the greater men perhaps wish to claim this for themselves as a kind of privilege, that by their own right they may commit crimes at least of the lesser sort. And so of the more venial sins I say nothing. Let us see whether anyone is immune even from those two, as it were, capital evils: that is, either from murder or from unchastity. For who is there either not stained with human blood, or not defiled with filthy impurity? One of these indeed suffices for eternal punishment, yet scarcely any of the rich has not committed both. But perhaps someone of this number thinks: 'I now do not do these things.' I commend you, if you do not do them; but yet perhaps you have done them before, and it is not the same thing to have never done a thing at all as to have ceased doing it.