Homilies on 1 Thessalonians 4.1–4.5

“For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, lest somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labour should be in vain. But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love, and that you always have a good remembrance of us, longing to see us, as we also to see you, for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we were comforted about you through your faith; for now we live, if [you stand fast in the Lord].” A question is set before us today, asked by many and gathered from many places. What is the question? “For this reason,” he says, “when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to learn about your faith.” What do you say? The man who knew so much, who heard unspeakable words, who went up as far as the third heaven, does he not know, and that while he is at Athens? And yet the distance was not great, nor had he been separated from them long before; for “having been bereaved of you,” he says, “for a short time.” Does such a man then not know the state of the Thessalonians, but is forced to send Timothy to learn about their faith? “Lest somehow,” he says, “the tempter had tempted you and our labour should be in vain.” What then might one say? That the saints did not know everything? And that they did not know, one might learn from many places, both from earlier times and from later ones: as Elisha did not know about the woman; as Elijah said to God, “I alone am left, and they seek my life”; therefore he heard from God, “I have left for myself seven thousand men.” As Samuel again, when he was sent to anoint David: “The Lord said,” it says, “to him: Do not look at his appearance, nor at the height of his stature, for I have rejected him; for God does not see as man sees; for man looks on the face, but God on the heart.” And this happens out of God’s great care. How and in what way? Both for the sake of the saints themselves and of those who believe in them. For just as he permits persecutions to happen, so he permits them to be ignorant of many things, so that they may be kept humble. Therefore Paul too said, “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, so that I might not be exalted”; and again, so that others too might not imagine great things about him. For if from the signs they thought them gods, much more if they had continued knowing everything at all times. And this he himself says again: “so that no one may think more of me than what he sees in me or hears from me.” And again hear Peter saying, when he had healed the lame man, “Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” And if, even when they said and did this, evil suspicions were nevertheless born from a few small things, much more would they have been from great ones. And these things were permitted for another reason too. So that no one might be able to say that it was not as men that they accomplished what they accomplished, and so all become careless, he shows them too to be in weakness, so as to cut off every pretext for shamelessness from those who wish to be ungrateful. Therefore he is ignorant; therefore too, often intending to come, he does not come, so that they may learn that he does not know many things. Great, then, was the gain from this. For otherwise some would even so have been saying, “This man is the great power of God,” and others, “So-and-so and so-and-so.” Had these things not happened, what would they not have thought? Here, however, it seems to be an accusation of them; but to one who looks carefully it displays also their great wonder, and the excess of the trials is shown. How? Attend. For if you told them beforehand, “We are appointed to this,” and “Let no one be troubled,” why do you send Timothy again, as though afraid that something you do not wish might happen? This he does out of great love; for those who love suspect even safe things out of their great warmth; and also because of the many trials. For I said, “We are appointed to this”; but the excess of the evils frightened me. Therefore he did not say, “I send because I condemned you,” but, “when I could bear it no longer”; which was rather a mark of friendship. What is “lest somehow the tempter had tempted you”? Do you see that to be shaken in afflictions is of the devil, and of his perverting? For when he cannot [shake] us ourselves, he [shakes] in another way, through us, those [who are weaker], which is a mark of [great] weakness, and has no excuse; as he did in the case of Job, rousing his wife: “Speak some word against the Lord,” she says, “and die.” See how he tempted her. And why did he not say “shook,” but “tempted”? Because I suspected only so much, he says, that you had been tempted; for he does not call his testing a shaking. For the one who accepts his attack has been shaken. Wonderful! How great was Paul’s tender affection: he did not care about the afflictions or the plots. For I think he was staying there at that time; as Luke says, that in Greece [he spent three months, when a plot was laid against him] by the Jews.

He did not care, then, about the dangers, but about those he was making disciples. Do you see that he surpassed every natural father? For we in afflictions and dangers cast out the memory of everyone; but he so feared and trembled for his children that, in the very dangers, he sent to them the only comfort he had, Timothy, his partner and fellow worker. “And our labour,” he says, “should be in vain.” Why? For even if they had been turned aside, it would not have been through your fault, nor through your negligence. But nevertheless, even so, I think my labour emptied, out of my great brotherly love. “Lest somehow the tempter had tempted you.” He tempts without knowing whether he will overthrow. Then does he attack even as one who does not know, and do we, who know that we will surely overcome him, not keep sober? That he attacks us without knowing he showed in the case of Job. For that wicked demon said to God, “Have you not fenced in what is within and without? Take away his possessions; surely he will bless you to your face.” He tempts. If he sees anything weak, he presses on; if strong, he withdraws. “And our labour,” he says, “should be in vain.” Let us all hear how Paul laboured. He did not say “work,” but “labour”; he did not say “and you will perish,” but “our labour.” So that if anything had happened, it would have been natural; but since nothing happened, the wonder is great. We expected these things, he says, but the opposite came about; for not only did we receive no addition of affliction from you, but even comfort. “But now that Timothy has come to us from you,” he says, “and has brought us the good news of your faith and love.” [See the gladness] of Paul! He did not say “reported,” but “brought good news”; so great a good did he think their firmness and love. For when that remains firm, this too must be established. And he rejoiced in their love too, because it was a sign of their faith. “And that you always have a good remembrance of us,” he says, “longing to see us, as we also to see you”; that is, with praises. Not when we were present, nor when we were working miracles, but even now, when we are far away and are scourged and suffer ten thousand terrible things, you have a good remembrance of us. Hear how disciples are admired for having a good remembrance of their teachers, how they are called blessed. Let us imitate them; for we benefit ourselves, not those who are loved. “Longing to see us,” he says, “as we also to see you.” And this too gladdened them. For for the one who loves to learn that the one he loves knows that he is loved is great comfort and encouragement. “For this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we were comforted about you through your faith; for now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.” What could be equal to Paul, who thought the salvation of his neighbours to be his own, being disposed toward all as a body toward its members? Who will be able to utter this word now? Or rather, who will ever be able to think so? He did not ask them to be grateful to him for the trials he underwent for them, but he thanks them that they were not shaken by his trials; as if he said: The harm from the trials came to you more than to us; you were tried more than we, you who suffered nothing more than we who suffered. Since Timothy brought us this good news, he says, we feel nothing of our griefs, but “we were comforted in all our distress”; and not this only, but “in our affliction,” he says; naturally. For nothing would touch a good teacher any longer, as long as the affairs of his disciples go forward as he wishes. “Through you,” he says. And yet it was the opposite; for for those who suffered not to give way, but to stand nobly, was enough to establish the disciples. But he does entirely the opposite, and turns the praise to them: You anointed us, he says; you gave us breathing space; you did not let us feel the trials. And what besides? “Now we live,” showing that he regards trial and death as nothing other than their stumbling, since he regards life as their progress. How could anyone else have shown either the grief over the weakness of his disciples, or the joy? He did not say, “we rejoice,” but “we live,” speaking of the life to come …

So that without this we do not think living to be life. So must teachers be disposed, so disciples, and nothing amiss will ever happen. Then, adding further warmth to it, see what he says: “For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice because of you before our God, praying night and day exceedingly that we may see your face and supply what is lacking in your faith?” You have been the cause not only of life to us, he says, but also of great gladness, and so great that we cannot even thank God worthily. Your good deed, he says, we think to be God’s gift; such [things you have done for us and such] kindness you have shown us that we think it is God’s; or rather it is even God’s work; for so great a spirit is not of a human soul or human zeal. “Night and day,” he says, “praying exceedingly.” And this too is a sign of joy. For just as a farmer, hearing about his land that he has toiled over that it is laden with fruit, longs to see such delight with his own eyes, so too Paul longed to see Macedonia. “Praying exceedingly”: see the excess. “That we may see your face and supply what is lacking in your faith.” Here the question is great. For if you now live because they stand, and Timothy brought you good news of their faith and love, and you are so full of joy that you cannot even thank God worthily, how do you say here that there are things lacking in their faith? Were those words flattery? By no means; far from it. For he bore witness beforehand that they endured many contests and were in no way worse disposed than the churches in Judea. What then is it? They had not enjoyed all the teaching, nor learned all they ought to learn; and this he makes plain toward the end. And perhaps there was questioning among them about the resurrection, and there were many troubling them, no longer with trials or dangers, but pretending to be teachers. This he calls “what is lacking in your faith”; and therefore he indicated it so, and did not say “that you may be established,” but “supply.” For where he feared for the faith itself, he says, “I sent Timothy to establish you”; but here he speaks of supplying what is lacking, which belongs rather to teaching than to confirmation; as he says elsewhere also, “that you may be complete for every good work.” And that is complete in which something little is lacking; for this is supplied. “Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you; and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we also do for you.” This is the mark of surpassing love, not only to pray by himself, but also to put the prayer in the letter; this is a token of a soul that boils over and is truly unable to contain itself, and of the prayers that had been made there; and at the same time a defence, that it is not willingly nor out of negligence that they do not come. As if he said: May God himself cut away the trials that drag us about everywhere, so that we may come straight to you. “And may the Lord make you increase and abound.” Do you see the unrestrainable madness of love, shown through the words? “Increase,” he says, “and abound,” in place of “grow.” As one might say, he desires in some way to be loved by them out of abundance. “As we also do for you”; that is, our part is already done; yours we ask to be done. Do you see where he wishes love to extend? Not to one another only, but everywhere. For this is truly the mark of love according to God, to embrace all; but if you love this man and no longer that one, the friendship is human. But ours is not such. “As we also do for you.” “So that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” He shows that love brings gain to them, not to those loved. I wish, he says, this love to increase, so that no blemish may arise. He did not say “establish you,” but “your hearts”; for “out of the heart come evil thoughts.” For it is possible to be wicked while doing nothing: for example, to have envy, faithlessness, deceit, to rejoice in evils, not to be friendly, to hold perverted doctrines; all these belong to the heart; and to be clean of these is holiness. For properly self-control in particular is called holiness, since sexual immorality and adultery are called uncleanness; but in general every sin is uncleanness, and every virtue purity: for “blessed,” he says, “are the pure in heart.” He calls pure those who are pure in every way.

For I know that the other things too defile the soul no less. For that wickedness pollutes the soul, hear the prophet saying, “Wash your heart from wickedness, Jerusalem”; and again, “Wash yourselves, become clean, take away the wickednesses from your souls.” He did not say “the acts of sexual immorality”; so that not sexual immorality only, but the other things too defile the soul. “To establish your hearts,” he says, “blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” Christ then will be judge at that time; yet we shall stand to be judged not before him only, but also before the Father. Or he means this, that we must become blameless before God; which I always say, “in the sight of God” (for this is sincere virtue), not in the sight of men. So love makes men blameless; and indeed it truly makes them blameless. And once when I was explaining this to someone, and saying that love makes men blameless, and that friendship toward one’s neighbour does not allow any entrance to wrongdoing, and was going through and pursuing all the rest in my discourse, one of my acquaintances interrupted and said, “What then of sexual immorality? Is it not possible both to love and to commit sexual immorality? Indeed it is from love that this happens. Greed, adultery, envy, plots and all such things love of one’s neighbour will be able to cut off; but sexual immorality, how?” he said. I said, then, that love can cut off this too. For if someone loves a woman who is living immorally, he will try to draw her away from the other men too, and not himself add to her sin. So to commit immorality with an immoral woman is the mark of one who hates her exceedingly; but the mark of one who truly loves is to draw her away from that abominable practice. And there is not, there is not any sin that the power of love does not consume like fire. For it is easier for a worthless stick to withstand a great fire than for the nature of sin to withstand the power of love. Let us then plant this in our own souls, so that we may stand with all the saints; for all of them were pleasing to God through love for their neighbour. Why was Abel slain, and did not slay? Surely through loving his brother greatly; he could not bear even to admit such a thought. Why did Cain admit the ruin of envy? I would not now call him Abel’s brother, because the foundations of love were not securely laid in him. Why were the sons of Noah approved? Was it not because they loved their father greatly, and could not bear even to look on his nakedness? And why was the other cursed? Was it not from not loving? And why was Abraham approved? Was it not from love, in what he did for his nephew, in his supplication for the Sodomites? For the saints were exceedingly, exceedingly tender-hearted and compassionate. For consider how Paul is disposed through love, he who dared even fire, the man of adamant, firm, unbending, always braced, nailed to the fear of God, inflexible. “For who,” he says, “will separate us from the love of Christ? Affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” This man, then, who dared all these things, and earth and sea, who laughed at the adamantine gates of Hades, whom nothing at all withstood: when he saw the tears of some beloved ones, this adamant was so broken and crushed that he could not even hide the feeling, but said at once, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart?” What do you say, tell me? Could a tear crush that adamantine soul? Yes, he says; for I hold out against everything except love; this overcomes me and masters me. This is what God wills. The abyss of waters did not crush him, and do little [tears] break my heart? For great is its strength. Do you wish to see him weeping again? Hear him saying elsewhere, “For three years, night and day,” he says, “I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.” Out of great love he feared lest some ruin should come in. And again, “For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears.” And what of Joseph, tell me, the firm one, who stood against such tyranny, who was seen so noble against such a pyre of passion, who so fought down and wrestled down the great madness of his mistress? For what did not then bewitch him? A comely face, the pride of rank, costly garments, the fragrance of perfumes (for these too know how to soften a soul), words softer than anything?

For you know that a woman in love, and so violently, [stops at] nothing …, and she, being of royal rank, perhaps threw herself at the knees of the captive slave, and perhaps besought him weeping and clasping his knees, and contrived this not once, not twice, but many times. One could have seen her eye then shining most of all; for it is likely that she adorned herself not simply, but with great elaboration, as wishing to take Christ’s lamb with many nets. Add here, I pray, many sorceries too. But nevertheless this unbending, firm, rock-like man, when he saw his brothers, who had sold him, who had cast him into the pit, who had sold him away, who had even wished to kill him, who had been the cause of his prison and of his honour; when he heard from them what they had done to their father (“For let us say,” they had said, “that a wild beast devoured him”), he wept; and not bearing the feeling, he went into his chamber and wept there; and having washed his face, he came out and controlled himself, that is, he wiped away his tears. What is this? Do you weep, Joseph? And yet what is before you deserves not tears but wrath and anger and indignation, great punishment and requital: you have in your hands the enemies who would have murdered their brother; you can satisfy your anger. And yet not even this is injustice; for you are not beginning unjust violence, but repelling those who have wronged you. For do not look, I beg, to your rank: it did not come of their intention, but of God, who poured out his favour upon you. Why do you weep? But he would have said: Far be it from me, having been approved in all things, to pour all that away through this remembrance of wrongs. It is truly a time for tears; I am not more savage than the wild beasts; they keep truce with their nature, whatever terrible thing they suffer. I weep, he says, that they treated me in such a way at all. Let us too imitate him, and mourn those who have wronged us; let us not be angry with them; for they are truly worthy of tears, for the punishment and condemnation to which they make themselves liable. I know how you weep now, how you rejoice, admiring Paul and amazed at Joseph and calling them blessed. But if anyone has an enemy, let him call him now to remembrance, let him put him in mind; so that, while the heart is still boiling with the memory of the saints, it may be able to loosen the frozen anger, and to soften what is rough and hardened. I know that after you go out from here, after I have stopped speaking, even if something of the warmth and fervour remains, it is not so great as now while you are listening. If anyone then, if anyone has grown cold, let him melt the frost; for remembrance of wrongs is truly frost and ice. But let us call upon the Sun of righteousness, let us ask him to send forth his rays, and it will no longer be thick frost but drinking water. If the fire of the Sun of righteousness touches our soul, it will leave nothing frozen, nothing hard, nothing burning, nothing fruitless; it will show everything ripe, everything sweet, everything full of great pleasure. If we love one another, that ray too will come. Grant me, I beg you, to say these things with eagerness; make me hear that we have accomplished something by these words: that someone went away and at once kissed his enemy, wept. Even if he were a wild beast, even a stone, even anything at all, he will be tamed by the same kindness. For why is he your enemy? Did he insult you? But he did you no wrong. But do you, for money’s sake, look on while your brother is hostile? No, I beg you. Let us loose everything. The time is ours; let us use it as we ought. Let us cut through the cords of our sins; before going to the judgment seat, let us judge one another ourselves. “Do not let the sun,” it says, “go down on your anger.” Let no one put it off. [If the day] passes over, you blush the more; and if you add tomorrow, the shame is greater; and if the third day, still more. Let us not then put ourselves to shame, but let us forgive, so that we may be forgiven. And if we are forgiven, we shall obtain all the good things in heaven in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honour, now and always and to the ages of ages. [Amen.]