for though I am free, he says, from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might gain the more: to those who are under the law, as under the law, though I myself am not under the law, that I might gain those who were under the law; to those who are without the law, as without the law, though I am not without the law of God, but am in the law of Christ, that I might gain those who are without the law. This he did not out of the craftiness of pretending, but out of the mercy of compassion—that is, not as though he feigned himself a Jew, as some have supposed, because he observed the old legal ordinances at Jerusalem. For he did this according to his own free and manifest opinion, in which he says: was any man called being circumcised?
let him not draw it over—that is, let him not so live as though he had drawn over his foreskin and covered what he had bared, as he says in another place: your circumcision has become uncircumcision. According, therefore, to this his own opinion, in which he says: was any man called being circumcised? let him not draw it over. Was any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised—he did those things which, by those who do not understand and attend too little, he was thought to have feigned; for he was a Jew and called circumcised; he was unwilling to draw it over, that is, unwilling to live as if he were not circumcised. For this he now had in his power. And he was indeed not under the law like those who observed it in a servile manner, but nevertheless in the law of God and of Christ.
For that law and the law of God were not different things, as the lost Manichaeans are wont to say. Otherwise, if, when he did those things, he is to be thought to have feigned, he also feigned a pagan and sacrificed to idols, because he says he became to those who are without the law as without the law—by whom he certainly wishes none to be understood but the Gentiles, whom we call pagans. It is one thing, then, to be under the law, another to be in the law, another to be without the law. Under the law are the carnal Jews; in the law are the spiritual, both Jews and Christians, whence the former kept that ancestral custom, but imposed not unwonted burdens upon the believing Gentiles; and therefore they too were circumcised;
but without the law are the Gentiles who have not yet believed, to whom nevertheless the Apostle testifies that he accommodated himself by merciful compassion, not by shifty simulation—that is, so that he might succour the carnal Jew or pagan in the same manner in which he himself, if he were such, would have wished to be succoured: bearing indeed their weakness in the likeness of compassion, not deceiving in the fiction of a lie, as he immediately goes on and says: I became weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak. For from this he spoke, so as to say all those things also. As, therefore, that he became weak to the weak was no lie, so also were the other things above.
For what weakness of his does he say he had toward the weak, but that of having compassion on them so far that, lest he should seem a seller of the Gospel and of the word of God, and, falling into an evil suspicion among the unskilled, should hinder its course, he was unwilling to accept what was owed to him by the Lord's right? But if he had wished it, he would certainly not have lied, because it was truly owed; and because he was unwilling, he certainly did not lie.
For he did not say that it was not owed to him, but showed that it was owed, and that he had not used, nor at all wished to use, what was owed—by that very thing made weak, in that he was unwilling to use his power, being clothed, namely, with so merciful an affection that he considered how he would wish it done with himself, if he too were so weak that, from those through whom the Gospel was preached to him, if he saw them accepting sustenance, he might, as it were, suspect the trafficking of a market. Of this his weakness he says in another place: we became little children in your midst, as if a nurse should cherish her own children. For the context of the reading indicates this.
for neither, he says, at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness—God is witness—nor did we seek glory from men, neither from you nor from others, though we might have been burdensome to you as apostles of Christ; but we became little children in your midst, as if a nurse should cherish her own children. What, then, he says to the Corinthians—that he has the power of his apostleship, as the other apostles also, which power he testifies he did not use—this too in this place he says to the Thessalonians: though we might have been burdensome to you as apostles of Christ, according to what the Lord says: the labourer is worthy of his hire. For this is what indicates that he speaks of that which he set forth above:
Nor did he do so on any occasion of covetousness—God is his witness. For through this—that what was owed by the Lord's right to the good evangelists was owed not to those who preach the gospel for this reason, but to those who seek the kingdom of God, so that all these things might be added unto them—certain others found an occasion, of whom he says the same thing: 'For such do not serve God, but their own belly.' It was from these that the Apostle wished to cut away this occasion, so that he might forgo even what was justly owed to himself. Indeed he plainly shows this in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, saying that his needs were supplied by other churches. For he had come, as it appears, to such great want that from far-off churches necessities were sent to him, while nevertheless from those among whom he was present he received no such thing.
'Did I commit a sin,' he says, 'in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you freely? I despoiled other churches, taking wages for ministering to you; and when I was present with you and in want, I was a burden to no one. For what was lacking to me the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied; and in all things I have kept myself, and will keep myself, from being burdensome to you. The truth of Christ is in me, that this glorying shall not be broken off in me in the regions of Achaia. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows. But what I do, and will do, is that I may cut off the occasion of those who desire an occasion, that in that wherein they glory they may be found even as we are.'
Of this occasion, then, which here he says he wishes to cut off, he wished it to be understood what he there said: 'Nor on any occasion of covetousness—God is his witness.' And what here he said, 'humbling myself that you might be exalted,' this in the First Epistle to the same Corinthians: 'To the weak I became weak'; this to the Thessalonians: 'I became a little one in the midst of you, as if a nurse should cherish her children.' Therefore attend to what follows. 'So,' he says, 'yearning over you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own souls, because you had become most dear to us. For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil, working night and day, that we might not burden any of you.' This, then, is what he says above:
'when we might have been burdensome to you as Christ's apostles.' For on account of the dangers to the weak—lest, stirred up by false suspicions, they should hate the gospel as though it were something for sale—he did this, moved as it were by fatherly and motherly bowels of affection. So too in the Acts of the Apostles he speaks in the same way, when, sending from Miletus to Ephesus, he had called from there the elders of the church, to whom, among many things, he said: 'I have coveted no man's silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands have served my necessities, and those of them that were with me. In all things I have shown you that so laboring we ought to help the weak, remembering also the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive.' Here perhaps someone may say:
If the Apostle worked at some bodily labor by which to sustain this present life, what was that work itself, and when was he free both to work and to preach the gospel? To this I reply: suppose me not to know; that nevertheless he worked bodily and thereby lived in the flesh, not using the authority which the Lord had given to the apostles—that whoever announces the gospel should live by the gospel—these things which have been said above testify without any doubt. For it was not said in one place only, nor briefly, so that it might by the tergiversation of any cunning man be twisted and perverted into another meaning.
Since, then, the opposition of those who contradict is crushed by such great and frequent weights of so weighty an authority, why do they demand of me either what work he did or when he did it? One thing I know: that he committed no thefts, nor was he a housebreaker or a robber, nor a charioteer or a hunter or an actor, nor a maker of base gain; but innocently and honestly he wrought those things that are suited to human uses, such as are the works of smiths, builders, cobblers, farmers, and things like these. For honesty itself does not censure what the pride of those men censures who love to be called honest but do not love to be so. The Apostle, therefore, would not have disdained either to undertake some rustic labor or to engage in the toil of craftsmen. For he who says:
'Be without offense to Jews and to Greeks and to the church of God'—whom in this matter he could have shrunk from, I do not know. If they should name the Jews, the patriarchs pastured flocks; if the Greeks, whom we also call pagans, even the philosophers held cobblers in much honor among themselves; if the church of God, that just man, chosen to be a witness of the ever-abiding virginity of his marriage, to whom the Virgin Mary was betrothed, she who bore Christ, was a carpenter. Whatever, then, of these things men do with innocence and without fraud, it is good. For the Apostle himself takes precaution against this, lest anyone through the necessity of sustaining life should slip into evil works. 'Let him that stole,' he says, 'steal no more;'
'but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to impart to him who has need.' It suffices, then, to know this: that in bodily work itself the Apostle wrought that which is good. But when he was accustomed to work—that is, in what intervals of time, lest he be hindered from evangelizing—who could comprehend? Certainly he himself did not keep silent that he worked both in the hours of the day and of the night. But these men, who as though very busy and occupied inquire about the time of working—what are they doing? Have they themselves filled the lands with the gospel from Jerusalem round about even to Illyricum? Or have they undertaken for the peace of the church whatever of the barbarous nations remains yet to be visited and fulfilled?
We know them gathered together most idly into a certain holy society. A marvelous thing did the Apostle do, who, truly amid so great a solicitude for all the churches—both those already planted and those to be planted, all pertaining to his care and labor—yet worked also with his hands; and nevertheless for this reason, when he was among the Corinthians and in want, he was a burden to none of those among whom he was present, but plainly what was lacking to him was supplied by the brethren who came from Macedonia. For he too, on account of such necessities of the saints who, although they obey his precepts—that working in silence they should eat their own bread—can nevertheless for many causes be in need of some supplement of such sustenance, when he had said such things, teaching and forewarning:
'Now those who are such we command and beseech in the Lord Jesus Christ, that working in silence they eat their own bread'—lest those who had wherewithal to furnish the servants of God with necessities should grow slothful on this occasion, foreseeing this he at once subjoined: 'But you, brethren, be not weary in well-doing.' And when writing to Titus, saying: 'Set forward Zenas the lawyer and Apollos diligently, that nothing be wanting to them,' in order to show whence it should be that nothing be wanting to them, he immediately added: 'And let our people also learn to be foremost in good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful.'
Timothy also, whom he calls his most genuine son, since he knew him to be weak in body—as he shows in admonishing him not to drink water but to use a little wine on account of his stomach and his frequent infirmities—because he could not labor in bodily work, lest perchance, being unwilling to lack daily sustenance, he should seek for himself some businesses from those to whom he ministered the gospel, by which the attention of his mind might be entangled—for it is one thing to labor with the body with a free mind, as does a craftsman, if he be not fraudulent and greedy and eager for private gain; but another thing to occupy the mind itself with the cares of gathering money without bodily labor, as are traders or agents or contractors;
for these preside over care, they do not work with their hands, and therefore they occupy their very mind with the anxiety of possessing—Timothy, then, lest he should fall into such things, since through the infirmity of his body he could not work with his hands, he thus exhorts and admonishes and consoles. 'Labor,' he says, 'as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one warring for God entangles himself in secular businesses, that he may please him to whom he has proved himself. For he who strives in the contest is not crowned unless he has striven lawfully.' Here, lest that man should suffer straits, saying, 'To dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed,' he added: 'The husbandman that labors must first partake of the fruits,' according to that which he had said to the Corinthians: 'Who serves as a soldier at his own charges ever?'
'Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who feeds a flock and does not partake of the milk of the flock?' Thus he made the chaste evangelist secure—one who evangelizes not for this end, that he might sell the gospel, but who nevertheless is unable to furnish himself with his own hands the necessities of this life—so that he might understand that what he took as necessary for himself from those for whom he served as a soldier over provincials, as it were, and whom he tended by cultivation as a vineyard, or fed as a flock, was not begging, but authority. On account, therefore, of these occupations of the servants of God, or their bodily infirmities, which cannot altogether be lacking, the Apostle not only permits the needs of the saints to be supplied by the good faithful, but even most wholesomely exhorts it.
For, apart from that authority which he says he himself did not use—which nevertheless he charges is to be served by the faithful, saying: 'Let him who is catechized in the word communicate to him who catechizes him in all good things'—apart, then, from this authority which the preachers of the word he often testifies to have over those to whom they preach, he charges and exhorts that even to the saints who had sold and distributed all their goods and dwelt at Jerusalem in the holy fellowship of life, calling nothing their own, to whom all things were common, and who were one soul and one heart unto God, necessities should be conferred by the churches of the Gentiles. Hence is that passage to the Romans. 'Now,' he says, 'I will go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints.'
'For it has pleased Macedonia and Achaia to make some contribution for the poor among the saints who are at Jerusalem. For it pleased them, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal things.' This is like that which he says to the Corinthians: 'If we have sown to you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?' Likewise in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: 'Now we make known to you, brethren, the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in much trial of tribulation the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their singleness of heart;'
'For according to their power, I bear witness, and beyond their power they were willing, entreating us with much beseeching for the grace and the fellowship of the ministering which is done unto the saints; and not as we hoped, but they gave their own selves first to the Lord, and to us by the will of God, so that we exhorted Titus that, as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace among you. But as you abound in all things, in faith and word and knowledge and all diligence, and in your love toward us, so may you abound also in this grace. I speak not by way of commandment, but by occasion of the diligence of others, proving also the genuineness of your love.'
'For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich. And I give counsel in this; for this is profitable for you, who have begun not only to do, but also to will, from the year before; now therefore complete it also by the deed, that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be also to perform out of that which each one has. For if the readiness be present, it is acceptable according to that which one has, not according to that which he has not. For it is not that there should be relief to others and straitness to you, but by equality in this present time, that your abundance may supply their want, so that their abundance also may come to supply your want, that there may be equality. As it is written:'
'He that had much, had nothing over, and he that had little, had no lack.' 'But thanks be to God, who put the same earnest care for us into the heart of Titus, because he indeed accepted the exhortation; but being more earnest, of his own accord he went out unto you. And we sent with him the brother whose praise in the gospel is throughout all the churches; and not only so, but who was also ordained by the churches as a companion of our pilgrimage with this grace which is administered by us to the glory of the Lord and our ready mind; avoiding this, that no one should blame us in this bounty which is administered by us. For we provide for good things not only before God, but also before men.'
In these words it appears how much he willed not only that there should be care by the holy peoples to minister necessities to the holy servants of God—giving counsel in this, because it profited those who did it more than those toward whom they did it (for to the latter something else profited, namely, to use holily this obsequious service of their brethren toward themselves, and neither for this to serve God nor to take these things except to supply necessity, not to feed sloth)—but also the blessed Apostle says his own care to be so great in this ministration, which was now being transmitted through Titus, that he mentions a companion of his pilgrimage ordained for this purpose by the churches, a man of God of good testimony, whose praise, he says, is in the gospel throughout all the churches.
And to this end he says that man was ordained a companion to him, that he might avoid the reproaches of men, lest without the testimony of the saints in this ministry of associates he should be thought, as it were, to take for himself and to turn into his own bosom what he received from the weak and the impious, which he received to supply the necessities of the saints, to be carried by himself or distributed to those in need. And a little after he says: 'For concerning the ministry which is done unto the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you. For I know the readiness of your mind, of which I glory on your behalf among the Macedonians, that Achaia was ready from the year before, and your zeal has provoked very many.'
'But we have sent the brethren, lest our glorying on your behalf should be made void in this respect, that, as I said, you may be ready; lest, if the Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we—not to say you—should be ashamed in this matter. Therefore I thought it necessary to ask the brethren to go before to you and prepare beforehand this your blessing promised long ago, that it may be ready as a blessing, not as covetousness. But this: he that sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that sows in blessing, in blessing shall also reap. Each one according as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver.'
'And God is able to make all grace abound in you, that having always all sufficiency in all things, you may abound unto every good work—as it is written: He has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness abides forever.'
'Now he that ministers seed to the sower will both furnish bread for food and multiply your sowing and increase the growing fruits of your righteousness—that you, being enriched in all things unto all singleness of heart, which works through us thanksgiving to God, because the ministry of this service not only supplies the things that are lacking to the saints, but also makes it to abound through the thanksgivings of many to God; through the proof of this ministration glorifying God for the obedience of your confession unto the gospel of Christ, and for the singleness of your fellowship toward them and toward all, and by their own prayer for you, longing after you on account of the excellent grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.'
With how great a richness of holy gladness was the Apostle suffused, while he speaks of the mutual supplying of the want of Christ's provincials—here from carnal things toward those, there from spiritual things toward these—so that he cried out, and as it were belched forth the fullness of holy joys, saying: 'Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!' As, then, the Apostle did not cease—nay rather the Spirit of God, possessing and filling and moving his heart—to exhort the faithful who had this kind of substance, that nothing should be lacking to the necessities of the servants of God, who willed to hold a loftier grade of holiness in the church, so as to cut off all bonds of worldly hope and to dedicate a free mind to the divine warfare:
so ought they too to obey his precepts, that they may have compassion on the weak, and, not bound by love of private property, labor with their own hands in common, and obey their superiors without murmuring, so that this may be supplied from the offerings of the good faithful. This—when to those who labor and work at something whereby to procure their food, they nevertheless think it lacking on account of the bodily infirmities of some, and on account of ecclesiastical occupations or the instruction of wholesome doctrine. For what those do who are unwilling to work bodily, to what thing they are at leisure, I desire to know. 'To prayers,' they say, 'and psalms and reading and the word of God.' A holy life plainly, and praiseworthy for the sweetness of Christ;
but if we are not to be called away from these things, then neither must we eat, nor must the very foods be prepared daily, that they may be set out and taken. But if the necessity of infirmity itself compels the servants of God to be at leisure for these things at certain intervals of time, why do we not also assign some portions of time to observing the apostolic precepts? For one prayer of an obedient man is sooner heard than ten thousand of a despiser. But the divine songs even those working with their hands can easily sing, and console the very labor as with a divine boat-song. Or are we ignorant into what vanities, and very often even basenesses of theatrical fables, all craftsmen give their hearts and tongues, while their hands do not withdraw from the work?
What, then, hinders a servant of God, working with his hands, from meditating in the law of the Lord and singing psalms to the name of the Lord Most High? So indeed that, for the learning of those things which he may recall from memory, he should have set-apart times. For to this end also those good works of the faithful for the aid of supplying necessities ought not to be lacking, that the hours in which one is at leisure for instructing the mind—so that those bodily works cannot be carried on—should not oppress him with need. But those who say that they are at leisure for reading—do they not find there what the Apostle enjoined? What perversity, then, is this, to be unwilling to obey the reading, while one wishes to be at leisure for it, and, in order that what is good may be read the longer, therefore to be unwilling to do what is read?
For who does not know that each one so much the more quickly profits when he reads good things, the more quickly he does what he reads? But if a discourse must be delivered to someone, and it so occupies him that he is not free to work with his hands, can indeed all in a monastery do this—either expound the divine readings to brethren coming to them from another kind of life, or dispute wholesomely about certain questions? Since, then, not all can, why under this pretext do all wish to be at leisure? And even if all could, they ought to do it by turns, not only lest the rest be occupied away from necessary works, but also because it suffices that, when many are listening, one should speak.
Then, how could the Apostle himself be free to work with his own hands, unless he appointed certain times for dispensing the word of God? For God did not will even this to be hidden from us. For both of what craft he was a workman, and at what times he was at leisure for dispensing the gospel, holy Scripture has not kept silent. For when the day of his departure was pressing upon him, being set at Troas, even on the first day of the week, the brethren being gathered together to break bread, so great was the intentness and so necessary the discussion, that the discourse was prolonged even until midnight, as though it had escaped them that on that day there was no fasting; but when he was to tarry in any place, disputing daily, who could doubt that he had hours appointed for this office?
For at Athens, when he was there, because he had found most zealous inquirers into things, it is thus written of him: 'He disputed therefore with the Jews in the synagogue, and with the Gentiles in the streets, in the marketplace, throughout every day, with all who were present.' For not in the synagogue throughout every day, where the custom was to discourse on the Sabbath, but 'in the marketplace,' he says, 'throughout every day'; because of the studies, of course, of the Athenians. For thus it follows: 'But certain of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers conferred with him.' And a little after it says: 'Now the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there were at leisure for nothing else than to tell or to hear something new.' Let us suppose the Apostle, on all those days that he was at Athens, not to have worked;
for on this account also his want was supplied from Macedonia, as he says in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Although he could also at other hours and by night, since he was so strong both in mind and in body. But when he had gone out from Athens, let us see what the Scripture says. 'He disputed,' it says, 'in the synagogue every Sabbath': this at Corinth. At Troas, therefore, where by the necessity of the impending departure the discourse was drawn out until midnight, it was the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's day: whence we understand that he was not with Jews, but with Christians, since even the narrator himself says that they had been gathered together to break bread.