Homilies 13.1–13.5

Homily 13. Exhortation to repentance. A Pharisee, as we heard Luke say just now, invites the Lord to a meal, brings him under his roof, and sets a common table before him. And the Lord neither refuses the invitation nor shuns the man, though he was neither a disciple nor a believer, but bound to the letter of the law, had not yet opened his eyes to the knowledge of the truth, and was badly dim-sighted toward the promises of the prophets. Why, then, did Luke record this chapter for us? Was it only so that we might know what Jesus did while he lived in the body, as if the writings were full merely of history …? I think it bears on our own life, and it is fitting that you should be persuaded of this. For there are many among those who justify themselves who are self-loving and self-satisfied, holding a high opinion of themselves through empty thinking, … those who come near, and, before the true judgment comes, separating themselves like lambs from the kids, and looking at the door of the kingdom as though it stood open for them. They do not deign to share a roof or food with the many, but loathe all who live not the extreme life but the middle one … Luke, then, a physician of souls more than of bodies, wrote the story we have in hand, not simply as a story, but as a medicine for the arrogance of the sick, showing our God and Saviour himself, incomparably pure and alone righteous, eating with others and living with those not yet cleansed; not to take on any of their wickedness, but to give them a share of his own righteousness, like the working of the sun we see (so far as one may present the Creator's providence from what he has created). For we know that the sun shines not only on the open plains, but also on whatever places lie lower and are set like caves. Let us stop, then, if any of us think in this way, as the passage tells us; let us imitate the Master's mercy and love for mankind, coming down to the lowly for this purpose: not to be brought low with them where they lie, but to [raise] those who are frozen into this life-giving air … Since the writing of the Gospel leads us by the hand to the best understanding, come, let us stretch ourselves toward the aim that has come before us. I greatly wonder at those who wear this passionate and pleasure-loving flesh, are defeated every day by sleep and the belly, and are not without experience of the other provocations, all those known to every one of us who share one and the same nature: how they are harsh judges of sinners and indulgent to themselves, weak contestants and inexorable legislators. They take away hope in God's love for mankind, block, as they think, the abundant fountain of mercy, and with great authority shut the entrance to the kingdom against those who have gone astray. This is nothing else than to produce despair in souls that are seeking healing. For one who despairs of a cure becomes the slave of the disease once and for all, and, before all else, a stranger to the promise of our Scriptures; for to one who examines them wisely there is nothing there that grace does not give and pardon heal. Who is so deaf and unhearing of the words of Job, who cries out plainly to all: “No one is clean from filth, not even if his life is but one day”? Who in his right mind would think so highly of himself as to suppose that, being subject to account, and that in God's court, he has no need of pardon and no use for mercy? … And even if [some] have reached the summit of righteousness and, as it is written, [tread] upon snakes and scorpions, and have been proclaimed victors and crowned against sin, not even so should they measure the life of all others by their own courage. They should confess thanks to God, who gave it, for their own good repute, because they drove their nature as masterful charioteers and did not prove weaker than the temptations of Satan; and they should stretch out the right hand of love to the weak, raise them from the clay, and cleanse them from their defilements. So they would win double praise, receiving the rewards both of their own valour and of their brotherly and kind compassion. But as it is, men who walk on the ground, living not the angelic life near the bodiless ones but such a life as anyone could call to account and mock, judge severely and cast the condemning vote with great authority. So one often has to say over them, choked by their pride and arrogance, the words of the Gospel: that you do not see the beams in your own eyes while you blow the specks out of other people's eyes; that binding the heaviest burdens on others, you go about as heavy judges and weak burden-bearers, anticipating the judgment seat of Christ and snatching the judge's sentence before him: slaves who despise others, and inexorable judges of your fellow slaves.

If you are zealous for God, since you were created after his image, imitate your archetype. Christians, who bear a name of love for mankind, emulate the love of Christ; look at the wealth of his love for mankind. When he was about to appear to men through a man, he first sent John ahead, the herald of repentance and introducer of a change of mind, and all the prophets before John, teachers of conversion. Then shortly afterwards he himself appeared, and cries out with his own voice, in his own person: “Come to me, all who [labour and are heavy laden, and I will give] you [rest].” How did he receive those who were persuaded by the call? He gave forgiveness of sins without toil, a momentary and swift release from what grieved them. The Word sanctified, the Spirit sealed; the old man was buried, the new was born, made young again by grace. What next? The man became one of the household instead of a stranger, a son instead of a foreigner, an initiate instead of profane, holy instead of impious. Whoever, then, after such magnificent [gifts] … [offended] the generous and good benefactor would, before you difficult and unsoftened judges, at once, without even being given a word, surely be led away to destruction, cut off from the life here and punished in the life there. But since the Lord of the verdict is another, who shows mercy to thousands and myriads, and does not will the death of the sinner but awaits his return, those who insulted the earlier grace were not punished in this way. Rather, a second mercy follows the first again; pardon is joined to amnesty; a tear that has fallen is equal in power to the bath; and toilsome groaning brings back the grace that had withdrawn for a little. If you disbelieve the word, ask Peter, sitting in the high priest's house, and he will tell you how, bitterly lamenting the fall of his denial, he was cleansed; and he did not relapse into Simon, but remained Peter the apostle. And I think that Judas Iscariot too, had he not quickly become his own executioner, judging his sin unpardonable, but had fallen down and asked for mercy, would not have [failed] of the compassions that … And a proof of the word is all the Hebrews who believed after the cross and washed their souls and their hands together in the bath. If those who crucified were shown mercy, how would the one who betrayed not have enjoyed amnesty? Paul too once bound Christians, but later, bearing chains for Christ, he cancelled the charges by suffering the same. He sinned [in] stoning, but by being stoned he wiped out the offence. Matthew and Zacchaeus once … but trampled on the tax office by despising money: the one received Jesus into his house, and still more into his soul; the other was shown to be an evangelist and writer of wonderful deeds. The tax collector with the Pharisee … necessary to recall, and the woman who lost and found the drachma. If anyone reckoned up the people of the whole of life, from beginning to end, through the successive ages, he would find most of them first held fast by sins, and then changed in mind by an inclination toward the better. For it belongs to God alone, as his special mark, to do all things rightly without fault. But man, brought under generation and corruption and open to so many passions, would never … to David the king of Israel, whom God appointed by election and adorned with the praises of his testimony, saying: “I have found a man after my heart, David the son of Jesse.” This man, after that brilliant testimony, when he was caught by the passion of bodily love and fell into the things we all know, came after the prophet's rebuke to a reckoning of the evil, and left on record for those who would come later the toil of repentance. We see in the Psalter, as in a picture, his toil: now his body wasting away with grief; again his making the night, the common rest from labours, a time of laments, and pouring tears on his bed as from the springs of his eyelids; and again his working out for us the fiftieth psalm, a model of propitiating God. His lament was not wrought in vain; his heavy groans drew down mercy, and he received back both the power of his royal authority and boldness in supplication before God. Likewise the man who was allotted the kingship of Nineveh was driven toward destruction by the multitude of his sins, together with the peoples he ruled, and the rebuke of sin proclaimed that the appointed time of punishment would soon be near.

… the experience of the misfortune, [Jonah] was grieved that, as the prophet of evils, he had not spoken the truth, and behaved boorishly toward God's mercy. But God, who everywhere makes known to us by words and deeds how great is his kindness toward men, made the gourd grow over the prophet's head as a shelter from the painful rays of the sun, and while he slept in its shade, suddenly dried it up. Then, when he woke and took what had happened badly, God reproached and rebuked him: if … , would God not be moved for so great a city near … Learn, then, you who are hard and implacable, the kindness of him who created us, and do not become bitter and heavy judges of your fellow slaves until he comes who reveals the secrets of hearts, and by the Master's authority [gives] to each … you pronounce sentences on men, so that you may not be subjected to the like, and be pierced by the words of your own mouths as by very sharp teeth. The prediction in the Gospel seems to me to be a safeguard against this offence, where it says: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” It does not drive out discernment and good sense; it calls the harsher condemnation “judgment”. Make the weight light, then, if you please, if you do not wish your own deeds too to be dragged down into the condemning pan, when our life is weighed as in a balance in God's judgment. As long as you wear a body and live in the flesh, never drive the cures of medicine out of your life. However long you may live in good condition and health, you will not remain so free of disease as never to need the care of the healer. And since you have a soul inclined toward earthly things, when, forgetting itself, … mercy, so that you may not go without pardon when you yourself need it. Is someone a priest, allotted to lead the people? Let him look with compassion on the falls of those under him, knowing that, though the rank of his life differs from that of the many, in nature he differs in nothing from those he shepherds; and sharing their nature, he will perhaps one day share their offences too. Moses saw this (for he was a man and knew human nature), and ordained that a calf be sacrificed for the priest, as one who had certainly sinned and needed purifications, and more of them. What the calf of flesh was then, bodiless repentance and bloodless supplication are now. Let us not, by talking loftily and boasting, undo their benefit, knowing that even Aaron, the most approved of priests, was carried away with the people when they sought gods, and was caught with his sister Miriam in grumbling; and if the … Is another not a priest but one of the many? Let him fear to lay a heavy yoke on others. For if the one appointed to purify the people sometimes needs purifications himself, what would happen to one who does not even have the power of ordination? Let us imitate the Master's pastoral care; let us look into the Gospels, and learn there, as in a mirror, the form of his care and kindness. For I see there, in parables and veiled words, a man who was shepherd of a hundred [sheep], … of the flock that was wandering, did not stay with those grazing in good order and without wandering, but set out at once to search for it. He went through many hollows and ravines, crossed great and lofty [mountains], and toiled steadfastly in the deserts until he found it. And when he found it, he did not strike it, nor drive it violently back to the flock, but put it on his neck, carried it gently, and restored it to its companions, rejoicing over it more than over the rest of the flock. Let us understand, then, the thing hidden in the riddles. The sheep is not really a sheep, and the shepherd is certainly something else, not a herder of irrational animals; these are instructive examples for priests, so that we neither readily despair of people nor grow careless when they are in danger. Let us seek out the one in the grip of passion, bring him back into order, rejoice over those who turn back, and [add them] to the full number of those who live rightly. So far should the priest practise love for mankind instead of severity that, even if the Master commands that someone be cut down as a useless plant, he, as the gardener, should ask for sparing and postponement. This is the sense set before us by [the parable of the fig tree]: when [it is about to be cut down at the command] of the Lord for its barrenness, the farmer pleads and asks for delay and postponement, holding out good hopes to him through his own care. Do not, then, cut down hastily, you who ought to hinder the cutting brought by the Lord, nor condemn its uselessness quickly; but work at its care … as with a palisade. Yours is to plead; the judge's is to judge. Let us strive to be called what the Lord too is called: for he is named Paraclete, advocate for the human race, propitiating the Father; likewise also the Spirit of truth …

… for he too is called Paraclete; and intercession and pleading are certainly offered for those who have sinned, not for the blameless and unaccused. Emulate, priest, the solicitude of Moses; imitate his disposition toward those he ruled. Entreating God not to be hostile to the people that had offended, when he perceived that grace was a little delayed, he begged this at least: that he might depart before the people, so as not to see the destruction of those he shepherded. Nothing is better than to recall his very words: “I pray, [Lord]; [this] people has sinned a great sin, and they have made for themselves gods of gold. And now, if you will forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written.” Do you see how he puts the salvation of the multitude before his own, and asks to be blotted out if he does not obtain pardon for them all? But those who now are embittered against sinners … Why, then, did Luke, or rather the Holy Spirit, write down for me the prodigal son? He insulted his father first by leaving, then, becoming …, he emptied out all his father's wealth. When later he had been [worn down] enough by hardships to become a hired swineherd and to share the same food with the pigs, he came back to his father's hearth in his right mind. The father did not turn away, nor shut the doors on him when he returned; quite the opposite, he ran to meet him as he approached, fell on his neck, dropped tears of compassion on it, made him a son again, putting a ring on his hand, kept the day as a feast, and prepared a splendid banquet. All this is spoken in a parable, [showing God receiving those who return to] the Church as to their father's hearth, and welcoming them kindly, so that they may no longer live with the pigs, the demons, but become sons again instead of strangers, living with the will of God as with a father's mind, and with holy men as with brothers. Do not emulate the mind of the elder son, nor grumble at the father's love for mankind because he took in even the prodigal and insolent son. Rather, wonder at his goodness, imitate God's kindness, and embrace and hold close those who return from error; so you will be a guide to the blind and … So much has been said to those of harsher mind, who practise severity before compassion, and there is no need of longer words. Now hear, you who need to turn back, how to lament the faults of the heart; or rather, if you please, consider the sinful woman in Luke who was read to us now. [Learn] her humility and good sense, and take from her the rules of an exact repentance. Coming to the Pharisee's house, she neither blushed before the crowd of diners nor shunned the time of the feast as unsuitable for confession; held fast by grief and mourning intensely for her offences, she did not let go of the physician of sins even for a moment. Nor did she come before his face and supplicate him in his sight; she expressed by her posture her unworthiness and lack of boldness, took her place behind his back, and did not simply stand there, but took hold of his feet from behind, loosed her hair, and made her mourning soul public by her deeds; pouring out on the feet of Jesus her tears … mercy, so many that she wet his feet, and then wiping away the moisture with her hair, she showed every humble reverence. In short, the woman worked out her repentance with all the senses and members with which she had sinned. And if she lamented her sins so publicly and openly, one can infer and see what she did in private and at leisure. But with us, the promise announces repentance, while the practice shows nothing laborious; we keep the same state of life that we had before the sin. The same cheerfulness, the same clothing, the same abundant enjoyment of the table, long sleep loosened to satiety, and occupations and cares one upon another that make the soul forget its own care; we merely write the name of repentance over ourselves, fruitless and inactive. We separate ourselves from the mysteries and from communion in the ineffable holy things, but make no effort to return to them, despising their enjoyment as something cheap. Consider … of those. If you shared a royal table and then, having given offence, were thrown out of that honour, how much money would you not have paid to become again a friend and table companion …, supplicating, at a loss, groaning, thinking life unliveable, showing by your wasting and the look of your face the pain of the grief in your depths, moving every stone, as the saying goes, until you had set your misfortune right? And the one who has been separated from closeness to God and has fallen from the truly lofty honour, what great and notable thing has he done to show the humility of an afflicted soul? It is not consistent for one who says he is sick to follow the same life as the healthy.

For the diet of the sick man is different, and the life of the healthy man is another. … You see how great is the change in the sick man from the habitual state of the healthy … He lies in a small room, having withdrawn from all his usual concerns; he neglects his farming, though he is very much a farmer; he lets go of the worry of wealth, the money-maker and lover of trade. With water and … who once set a Sybaritic table before himself; he takes no pleasure in his children as usual, and is separated from his wife; he is with the physicians night and day, and with many fees he hastens toward health as toward a welcome gain. That is what the man sick in body does. But you, who are badly off in soul, going about … the bodiless …, confessing your sickness to the physician only in pretence and showing it, leave the disease to spread and turn gangrenous, so that it [reaches] the whole mass … you sinned; you angered your Creator, who has authority over the present life and is lord and judge of the life to come. Did luxury harm you? Heal enjoyment with fasting. Did licentiousness damage your soul? Let self-control become the medicine for the illness. Did covetousness, with its many goods, bring on a fever of the mind? Let almsgiving empty out the surfeit; for sharing is a purge for those who are overfull. Did seizing what belongs to others harm us? Let the plunder go back to its own master. Did falsehood bring us near destruction (for “you destroy,” it says, “all who speak falsehood”)? Let truth be our care … Does Zechariah's sickle, flying through the air, threaten to cut us down? Let us put on the whole armour of repentance, so as to turn aside the sickle's edge. Has someone impiously served heretical doctrines? Let him banish the superstition by the mind of right belief. For this is repentance: the undoing and destruction of what was formerly done in act or conceived in disposition. But you, who know the benefit of repentance and are always turning about in the filth of lawlessness, are like a slave who knows his master's anger and yet does evil before his eyes … and triples his sin. Be sensitive to the disease that holds you. Crush yourself as much as you can. Seek also … of like-minded brothers to help you toward freedom. Show me your tears, bitter and abundant, so that I may mingle mine with them. Take the priest too as partner in your affliction, as a father. For what father is so falsely named, or so adamantine in soul, as not to lament with his children when they grieve, or again rejoice with them when they rejoice? A priest laments the sin of a son in the faith as Jacob lamented over Joseph's bloodied tunic, as David over Absalom's destruction, as Eli over Hophni and Phinehas fallen in battle, as Moses over the godless people who invented the making of the calf. More than in your fathers in the body, have confidence in the one who begot you according to God. Show him unblushingly what is hidden; lay bare the secrets of your soul, as one shows a hidden disease to a physician. He will take care both of your good name and of your healing; … the shame touches the parents more than the sufferers themselves; for their glory belongs to those who begot them, and so does their shame. Uncertain, brothers, is the appointed end of life. Let us get ahead of our departure by our care. It is absurd that those who take thought for the flesh sensibly purge themselves of their humours before the rising of the so-called Dog Star, so that the moisture, putrefying in the excessive heat, may not cause a disease-producing decay; and that those who need care in mind should not get ahead of the uncertainty of death and the seething of the punishing fire, which burns unceasingly and is never cooled. You had the drachma of the Gospel, and were well enriched by the coin; then through laziness you lost it. Light the lamp of repentance; stoop down carefully; seek the treasure … save …, so that we, your neighbours, may share with you the joy in Christ, to whom be glory now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.