歌羅西書講道集 第 7 章

Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or of a new moon or of sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's.

Let no one defraud you of your prize, delighting in a false humility and worship of the angels, intruding into things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increases with the increase of God.

Having first spoken in a riddling manner, 'Beware lest there be anyone who spoils you after the tradition of men,' and again higher up, 'And this I say, lest anyone beguile you with persuasive words';

and having first taken possession of the soul and rendered it careful, then, after interposing the benefits and having done this to a greater degree, he brings in the reproof afterwards, and says:

Let no one therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or of a new moon or of sabbaths.

See how he demolishes these things? If you have obtained such great things, he says, why do you make yourselves liable for the little ones? And he cheapens them, saying, 'Or in respect of a feast day';

for indeed they did not observe all the former things.

He said not, 'Do not therefore keep them,' but, 'Let no one judge you.'

as transgressing and breaking them, but upon others he laid the charge.

Do not tolerate those who judge you, he says.

but he addresses them alone, not stopping their mouths with the words, 'You ought not to be judging.'

But he would not have laid hold of these things.

He did not say, 'In clean things and unclean,' nor did he say, 'In feasts of tabernacles and of unleavened bread and at Pentecost';

for they did not dare to observe the whole of it;

and even if they did observe it, it was not so as to keep festival.

He shows that the greater part had been abolished.

For even if they kept the Sabbath, yet they did not do so strictly.

Which things are a shadow of the things to come;

of the New Covenant, he says.

Some, then, punctuate it thus: 'But the body is Christ's';

and the truth has come to pass in Christ.

But others read: 'The body of Christ—let no one defraud you'—that is, treat you spitefully.

For to be defrauded of the prize is when the victory belongs to one, but the prize goes to another—when, having conquered, a man is treated with spite.

You stand above the devil and above sin;

why do you again subject yourself to sin? For this reason he was saying that a man is a debtor to fulfil the whole law;

and again, 'Is Christ found a minister of sin?'—which he said when writing in the Epistle to the Galatians.

When, therefore, he had filled them with indignation by saying 'Let him defraud you,' then he begins:

'Doing this,' he says, 'in humility and worshipping of the angels, intruding into things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his own flesh.'

How 'in humility'? Or how 'puffed up'? He shows that the whole thing is a matter of vainglory.

But what is the whole meaning of what is said? There were certain persons who said:

'We ought not to be brought near through Christ, but through the angels;'

for that, they said, is too great a thing for us.

For this reason he turns over, up and down, the things that were said by him on Christ's behalf: 'Through the blood of His cross we were reconciled'; 'that He suffered for us'; 'that He loved us.'

And in this very matter again they were being ensnared.

And he did not say 'access,' but 'worship.'

For he has not seen angels, and yet is disposed as though he had seen them.

For this reason he says, 'Vainly puffed up by the mind of his own flesh.'

For it is not upon any true fact that he is puffed up, but upon a mere opinion.

And he puts forward a form of humility;

the reasoning is that of a fleshly mind, not a spiritual one—a human reasoning.

'And not holding fast the Head,' he says, 'from which the whole body—'

That is, from thence it has its being and its well-being.

Why then, letting go the Head, do you cling to the members? If you fall away from thence, you are lost.

'Whoever it may be,' he says, has from thence not only his life, but also his being knit together.

The whole Church, so long as it holds the Head, grows;

since it is no longer a passion of madness and vainglory, the invention of human thought.

Behold the phrase 'from whom,' applied to the Son.

'Through the joints and bands,' he says, 'being supplied and knit together, it increases with the increase of God';

the increase according to God, he means, that which comes from the most excellent manner of life.

'If then you died with Christ.'

He sets that in the midst, and the more vehement point on either side.

'If you died with Christ from the elements of the world,' he says, 'why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances?' It has no logical sequence;

how is it that, as though living, you are subject to the elements?

But, letting this pass, what does he say? 'Touch not, taste not, handle not';

which things all tend to corruption by their use, according to the commandments and doctrines of men.

'You are not in the world,' he says;

and how are you subject to the elements? How to the observances of the world? And see how he ridicules them: 'Handle not, touch not, taste not,' as though they were abstaining from some great matters.

Which things all tend to corruption by their use.

He pulled down the self-inflation of the many, and added:

'According to the commandments and doctrines of men.'

What do you say? Even if you should name the Law, it is henceforth but a doctrine of man after the proper season.

Either he spoke thus because they were corrupting it, or he is hinting at the practices of the Greeks.

'The whole teaching is human,' he says.

'Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in—'

'—will-worship and humility and severity to the body, not in any honour for the satisfying of the flesh.'

'A show,' he says, not a power;

so that even if it has a show of wisdom, let us turn away from it.

For such a man seems to be devout and moderate, and to despise the body;

'Not in any honour for the satisfying of the flesh.'

For God gave it honour, but they treat it not with honour.

Thus, whenever there is a mere doctrine, he knows how to call it 'honour.'

'They dishonour the flesh,' he says, depriving it, and taking away its liberty, not permitting it to rule of its own accord;

but God honoured the flesh.

'If then you were raised together with Christ.'

He gathers them up henceforth, having established above that He died.

For this reason he says, 'If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above.'

There is no observance of ordinances there.

'Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.'

To what a height did he raise our mind! How he filled them with lofty thoughts! It did not suffice him to say 'the things above,' nor 'where Christ is,' but he adds, 'seated at the right hand of God.'

Thenceforth he was preparing us no longer to look upon the earth.

'Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.'

'For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.'

When Christ, who is your life, shall be made manifest, then shall you also with Him be made manifest in glory.

This, he says, is not your life;

your life is some other thing.

Already he presses to remove them, and contends to show them seated on high and yet as though dead, arranging by both means that they should not seek the things here below.

For if you are dead, you ought not to seek them;

and if you are on high, you ought not to seek them.

Is Christ not made manifest? Then neither is your life.

What then? When shall we live? When Christ, who is your life, shall be made manifest, then seek glory, then life, then delight.

These things serve as a preparation to lead them away from luxury and ease.

It is his custom, while establishing one point, to leap over to another;

as, for instance, when discoursing about those who come beforehand to the suppers, he suddenly fell into the matter of watchful reverence toward the mysteries.

For a reproof has great force when it comes unexpectedly.

It is hidden, he says, from you.

Then shall you also with Him be made manifest.

See how he has transported them to heaven itself.

For, as I said, he ever contends to show that they possess the very same things as Christ also possesses;

and throughout all his epistles this is his theme, to show them as partakers with Him in all things.

For this reason he speaks both of a head and of a body, and does everything, that he may establish this point.

If, therefore, we are made manifest only then, let us not grieve when we do not enjoy honor;

if this life is not truly life, but is hidden, then as dead men we ought to live this present life.

Then, he says, shall you also with Him be made manifest in glory.

In glory, he said, not simply made manifest;

since the pearl too is hidden, so long as it is within the shell.

Whether, then, we be insulted, let us not grieve, whether we suffer anything whatsoever;

for this life is not our life;

for we are strangers and sojourners.

Who is so foolish as, for a dead body that has been buried, either to buy servants, or to build houses, or to prepare costly garments? No one.

But just as we seek one thing only, that it be not left naked, so here also let us seek one thing only.

Our first man was buried;

buried not in earth, but in water, death not dissolving him, but He who dissolved death burying him, not by the law of nature, but by the command of His dominion, which is stronger than nature.

For the things brought about by nature one might dissolve, but the things brought about by His command, no longer.

Nothing is more blessed than this burial, over which all rejoice, both angels and men and the Lord of the angels;

for this burial there is need neither of garments, nor of a coffin, nor of any other such thing.

Would you see the symbol? I will show you a font, in which the one was buried, and the other raised.

In the Red Sea the Egyptians were drowned, but the Israelites came up;

and the same act both buries the one and gives birth to the other.

Marvel not, if generation and destruction take place in baptism;

since, tell me, is not dissolving contrary to cementing together? It is surely plain to everyone.

For fire dissolves and destroys wax, but cements together the metallic earth and works it into gold.

So indeed here too, the power of the fire, having done away with the statue of wax, showed forth one of gold in its stead;

for truly we were of clay before the washing, but of gold after it.

Whence is this plain? Hear him saying:

The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is heavenly, from heaven.

I, for my part, spoke of a distance as great as that between clay and gold, but I found a greater difference, that between the heavenly and the earthly;

for the distance between clay and gold is not so great as that between the earthly and the heavenly.

We were of wax and of clay;

for the flame of desire melted us far more than fire melts wax;

and any chance temptation broke us in pieces far more than a stone breaks things of clay.

And, if you will, let us sketch out our former life, whether it was not all earth and water, having its unsteadiness and its dust and its instability and its flowing away.

And, if you will, let us examine not our former things but our present ones, whether we shall not find all that exists to be dust and water.

For what would you name? Offices and positions of power? For nothing seems more to be envied than this in the present life.

But one might find dust more stable, standing in the air, than these things, especially now.

For to whom are they not subject? To those who covet them, to the eunuchs, to those who do all things for the sake of money, to the fury of the populace, to the wrath of the more powerful.

He who yesterday was exalted upon the tribunal, who had heralds crying aloud with a resounding voice, and many running before him and clearing the way through the marketplace, is today mean and lowly and bereft and stripped of all those things, like dust that has been blown up, like a stream that has passed by.

And just as the dust is raised up from our feet;

so also these offices are born of those who are wrapped up in money, and who hold the rank of feet throughout the whole of life;

and just as the dust, when it is raised, occupies a large part of the air, though it is itself but little, so also is office;

and just as the dust blinds the eyes, so also the vainglory of office maims the eyes of the understanding.

But what? Would you have us examine the much-prayed-for thing, wealth? Come, let us examine it part by part.

It has luxury, it has honors, it has power.

First, then, if you will, let us examine the luxury; is it not dust? Or rather, it runs by even more swiftly than this;

for the pleasure of luxury reaches only as far as the tongue;

and when the belly is filled, not even as far as the tongue.

But the honors themselves are a pleasant thing, one says.

And what is more distasteful than that honor, when it comes on account of the need for money? When it is not from choice, nor from any eager goodwill, it is not you who reap the honor, but your wealth.

So that this very thing renders the rich man most of all men without honor.

For tell me, if, when you had a friend, all honored you, but confessed that you yourself were worthy of nothing, and that they were constrained to honor you on his account, was there any other way in which they could have dishonored you? So that wealth is to us the cause of dishonor, being itself more honored than those who possess it, and a token of weakness rather than of power.

How then is it not absurd that we should not be reckoned worthy for earth and ashes (for such is gold), but that we should be honored on its account? Reasonably so;

but it is not so with him who despises wealth;

for it is better not to be honored at all than to be honored in this way.

For tell me, if someone said to you, 'I count you worthy of no honor at all, but I honor you for the sake of your household servants,' pray, what could be worse than such a dishonor? And if it is shameful to be honored on account of servants who share the same soul and nature with us, how much more so on account of these things which are far more paltry

I mean the walls of houses, and courtyards, and vessels of gold, and garments.

These things are truly matter for laughter and for shame;

it were better to die than to be honored in such a way.

For tell me, if while you were in danger amid this pride some worthless and contemptible fellow wished to rescue you from the danger, what could be worse than this? But what you say to one another concerning our city, I wish to say to you.

Once our city gave offense to the reigning emperor, and he commanded that it be utterly destroyed, together with its men, its children, and its dwellings.

For such are the wraths of kings;

to their power they grant free rein as much as they wish;

so great an evil is power.

The city, then, was in the uttermost dangers.

But the neighboring city, this one upon the sea, came and interceded with the emperor on our behalf;

yet those who dwelt in our city said that this was worse than that the city should be razed.

So then, to be honored in this way is worse than to be dishonored.

For consider whence honor has its root.

The hands of cooks cause us to be honored, so that to them we owe our thanks;

and the swineherds who furnish the lavish table, and the weavers, and the wool-workers, and those who labor in the mines, and the confectioners, and the table-dressers.

Since, then, we must owe our thanks to these for our honor, is it not better not to be honored at all? And apart from this, that to be rich is full of dishonor, I will try to demonstrate plainly.

It renders the soul base;

and what is more dishonorable than this? For tell me: if the body were comely and surpassed all in beauty, but wealth came and promised to make it foul—to make it, instead of healthy, diseased; instead of trim, inflamed; and having filled all its limbs with dropsy, swelled up the face and made it puffy on every side, and swelled the feet and made them heavier than beams, and swelled the belly and made it larger than any wine-jar; and after this would not even permit those who wished to treat it (for this is what power is), but would grant such license that if anyone approached to draw off the harmful humors, it would punish him—

would there be anything more savage than this, tell me? Then, when wealth works these things upon the soul, how could it be a good thing? Nay, the power it confers is more grievous than the disease itself;

for that a sick man should not even obey the prescriptions of physicians is worse than the sickness itself;

and this is just what wealth does, making the soul inflamed on every side and hindering the physicians from drawing near.

Therefore, on account of their power, let us not count these men blessed, but pity them.

For neither, on seeing a dropsical man lying prostrate with no one hindering him from gorging himself on all the drinks he wished and on the meats that harmed him, would I have counted him blessed on account of his liberty.

For power is not everywhere a good, just as neither are honors;

for these too fill men with much conceit.

But if you would not choose to receive this disease in your body along with wealth, how is it that you overlook your soul receiving not this only, but yet another punishment besides? For it is inflamed on every side with fevers and inflammations, and that fever no one is able to quench;

for wealth does not permit it, having persuaded men that these very things, which are defects, are actually advantages;

such as, to endure no one, and to do all things by dint of power.

For one will not find another soul so laden with desires, and desires so absurd, as those of men who wish to be rich.

For how many follies do they not sketch out for themselves? More than those who fashion hippocentaurs and chimaeras and dragon-footed creatures and Scyllas and monsters—such a one might see them fashioning.

And should you wish to portray a single one of their desires, neither Scylla nor chimaera nor hippocentaur will appear as anything beside that monstrosity, but you will find it possessing all the beasts at once.

And perhaps someone will suppose that I have myself been amid great wealth, so truly do I portray what happens.

For first I will confirm my discourse from the tales sung among the Greeks;

that one so wantonly outraged luxury as to make a plane-tree of gold, and a heaven above it, and so to sit down—and this while marching to war against men schooled in warfare.

Is not this the desire of hippocentaurs? Is it not of Scylla? Another again cast men into a wooden bull.

Is not this Scylla? And meanwhile, of those of old, luxury made the king, the soldier, from a man into a woman;

and from a woman into—what shall I say?—an irrational beast, and something even worse than that.

For the beasts, if they be under trees, are content with their nature and seek nothing more;

but this man overshot even the nature of the beasts.

What, then, could be more senseless than the rich? And this comes from the insatiable greed of their desires.

Do not many marvel at him? Indeed, they share in the laughter directed at him.

This displayed not his wealth, but his folly.

By how much is the earth's own plane-tree better than that golden one? For things according to nature are more delightful than things contrary to nature.

And what did your golden heaven mean to accomplish, O senseless one? Do you see how great wealth makes men mad? how it inflames them? I think he was even ignorant of the sea, and perhaps wished to walk upon it.

Is not this a chimaera? Is it not a hippocentaur? But there are even now some who fall nothing short of him, but prove to be far more senseless.

For in what, tell me, do those who make golden jars and pots and alabaster boxes differ in folly from the golden plane-tree? And what of the women (I am ashamed indeed, yet it is needful to speak) who make chamber-pots of silver? You who do such things ought to be ashamed.

While Christ hungers, do you so revel in luxury? nay, rather play the fool? What punishment shall these women not pay? Do you then still ask why there are robbers, why murderers, why evils, when the devil has thus dragged you astray? For to have plates of silver is not even that the mark of a philosophic soul, but wholly of luxury;

but to make even unclean vessels out of silver—is this luxury? Nay, I would not call it luxury, but folly;

nay, not even this, but madness—rather, even worse than madness.

I know that many hold me up to ridicule for this, but I pay no heed, so long as some gain may come of it.

Truly, being rich makes men senseless and mad.

Were their abundance so great, they would wish even the earth to be of gold, and the walls of gold, and perhaps the sky too and the very air to be made of gold.

What madness is this, what lawlessness? what fever? Another man, made after the image of God, is perishing of the frost, and you contrive such things? O the pride of it!

what more could a madman have done? Do you so honor your excrement as to receive it in silver? I know that you grow numb at hearing this, but it is the women who make you numb who ought to grow numb, and the men who wait upon such maladies!

For this is licentiousness, and savagery, and inhumanity, and brutishness, and wantonness.

What Scylla, what chimaera, what serpent—nay, rather what demon, what devil—would have done these things?

What profit is there in Christ? and what in the faith, when one endures men who are Greeks—nay, rather not Greeks, but demons? If one ought not to adorn the head with gold and pearls, what pardon shall he obtain who has used silver for so unclean a service? Are the rest not enough—and yet not even those are tolerable—that everything, chairs and footstools, should be of silver? And yet these too are marks of folly.

But everywhere is superfluous pride, everywhere vainglory;

nowhere aught of need, but everywhere the superfluous.

I fear lest, as this madness advances, the female sex should take on the form of monsters;

for it is likely that they should even desire to have golden hair.

Either confess that you were unmoved by what was said, and were roused up, and fell into the desire—and had not shame restrained you, you would not have refused it—

for if you dare things even more absurd than these, much more, I think, do these women desire to have their hair of gold, and their lips, and their eyebrows, and everything gold,

wasting themselves away by smearing themselves over in this fashion.

But if you disbelieve and think that I speak in jest, I will relate what I have heard—nay, rather what even now exists.

The king of the Persians has a golden beard, those skilled in such arts winding the leaves of gold about his hairs as about a woof-thread;

and he is set up on display like some monster.

Glory to you, O Christ, with how many good things have you filled us, how have you made us to be sound of mind! From how great monstrosity, from how great unreason have you delivered us! Behold, I foretell it;

I no longer merely exhort, but I command and enjoin;

Let the one who wishes to hear, hear; and the one who does not wish, let him disobey.

For if you persist in doing these things, I will neither endure nor receive you, nor will I suffer you to cross over these thresholds.

For what need have I of a multitude of the sick? And what if, in training you, I do not forbid the things that are not superfluous? Yet indeed Paul did forbid them—both gold and pearls.

We are laughed at by the Greeks; our religion seems to them a mere fable.

And to the men also I give these same exhortations.

You come to a place of teaching, being instructed in spiritual philosophy? Then strip away that vanity.

This I urge upon both men and women.

And if anyone acts otherwise, I will no longer endure it.

The disciples were twelve; and hear what Christ says to them:

'Do you also wish to go away?' For if we flatter throughout, when shall we ever recover anyone? When shall we ever profit them? But there are, one says, other sects, and they go over to them.

Better is one man doing the will of the Lord than ten thousand transgressors.

Since you too—tell me—which would you rather have: ten thousand runaway and thieving servants, or a single loyal one? Behold, I exhort and charge you also to break in pieces the adornment about the face and vessels of that kind, and to give to the poor, and not to be so frantically mad.

Let the one who wishes leap away; let the one who wishes bring accusation.

When I am about to be judged before the tribunal of Christ, you will stand far off, and the favour that comes from you will avail nothing, while it is I who render the account.

These very words have ruined everything.

'That he may go away,' one says, 'and be removed to another sect';

'he is weak—condescend to him.'

Until when? Until what point? Once, and twice, and thrice—but not forever.

Behold, I charge you again, and I testify, after the manner of the blessed Paul, that if I come again, I will not spare;

but when you have set things right, then you will know how great is the gain, how great the profit.

Yes, I beseech and implore you, and I would not shrink even from clasping your knees and laying down a suppliant's plea on behalf of this.

What is this folly? What is this self-indulgence? What is this insolence? This is not luxury, but insolence.

What is this senselessness? What is this madness? So many poor stand about the church, and though the Church has so many children, and children so wealthy, she is unable to succour a single poor man;

but the one hungers, while the other is drunk;

the one even relieves himself upon silver, while the other has not so much as a share of bread.

What is this madness? What is this savagery so great? May it not come to pass that we should be brought to the trial of proceeding against the disobedient, nor to the indignation of permitting these things, but rather that willingly and with forbearance we should put away all these evils;

that we may live unto the glory of God, and be delivered from the punishment yonder, and attain the good things promised to those who love Him, by grace and lovingkindness.