Homilies on 1 Thessalonians 5.1–6.2

“Finally, brothers, we ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, you abound more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through our Lord Jesus Christ. For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” When he has dealt with what is urgent and at hand, and is about to go on to things that are lasting and must be heard continually, he puts this word first: “finally,” that is, always and continually we ask you and exhort you in the Lord. Wonderful! He says that he is not trustworthy enough even to exhort; and yet who was so trustworthy? But he takes Christ with him. We exhort you through God, he says; for this is “in the Lord.” Which he said to the Corinthians too: “God exhorts you through us.” “That as you received from us.” “Received” refers not to words only but also to deeds. “How you ought to walk”: in this he means the whole conduct of life. “And to please God, that you abound more and more”; that is, that out of greater abundance you may not stop at the commandments, but may even go beyond them; for this is “that you abound.” For in what precedes he welcomes the wonder of their firm faith; but here he orders their life. For this is progress: to go even beyond the commandments and ordinances; for then everything is done no longer from the compulsion of teaching but from one’s own choice. For just as the earth must not bear only what is sown, so the soul too must not stop at what has been sown, but go beyond. Do you see that he rightly spoke of going beyond? For virtue is divided into these two: turning away from evil, and doing good. For withdrawal from evils is not enough for the attainment of virtue; it is a road and a beginning leading there, but we need much eagerness. The things to be avoided, then, he tells them in the form of instruction, rightly; for these, when done, bring punishment, but when not done, not even praise. But the things of virtue, such as emptying out one’s money and the like, he no longer speaks of in the form of instruction; but what? “Let the one who is able to receive it receive it.” It is likely, then, that he had instructed them in these things with much fear and trembling, and through this letter reminds them of that reverence. Therefore he does not set them down, but reminds them. “For you know,” he says, “what instructions we gave you through our Lord Jesus Christ. For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” And see how about nothing else does he hint so vehemently as about this; as writing elsewhere also he says, “Pursue peace with all, and sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord.” And why do you wonder if he writes about this to the disciples everywhere, when writing even to Timothy he said, “Keep yourself pure”? And writing in the second letter to the Corinthians he said, “In much endurance, in fastings, in purity.” And one could find this in many places, both in the letter to the Romans and in all the letters. For truly this evil ruins everything; and just as a pig covered in mud, wherever it goes, fills everything with stench and fills the senses with filth, so does sexual immorality; for the evil is hard to wash away. And when some who even have wives do this, how great is the excess of perversity! “For this is the will of God,” he says, “your sanctification: that you abstain from all sexual immorality.” For there are many kinds of disorder; the pleasures of licentiousness are manifold and various, which it is not bearable even to name. By saying “from all sexual immorality,” he leaves it to those who know. “That each one of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.” “That each one of you know,” he says, “how to possess his own vessel.” So the matter requires learning, and much of it, so as not to be licentious. So we possess it when it remains pure and is in sanctification; but when impure, sin [possesses it]; naturally. For it no longer does what we wish, but what sin commands. “Not in the passion of lust,” he says. Here he shows also the way in which one must be self-controlled: so as to cut off the passions of lust. For luxury, and wealth, and carelessness, and idleness, and leisure, and all these things lead us out into perverse lust. “Like the Gentiles,” he says, “who do not know God.” For such are those who do not expect to pay a penalty. “That no one transgress and wrong his brother in the matter …”

Well did he say “not transgress”; for to each God has assigned a wife, and has set boundaries to nature: that union with the one woman. So union with another is transgression and robbery and greed; or rather, more grievous than any robbery. For we are not so pained when our money is carried off as when our marriage is broken into. You call him brother, and do you take advantage of him, and in what you ought not? Here he speaks of adultery, but above of all sexual immorality. For since he was going to say “not transgress, nor take advantage of his brother,” he says beforehand: do not think that I say these things only in the case of the brothers; rather, one must not have other men’s wives, nor even women who are simply without husbands and common. One must abstain from all sexual immorality; therefore he says, “because the Lord is an avenger in all these things.” First he exhorted; he shamed them by saying, “like the Gentiles”; then he showed the perversity from reasoning; and finally the chief point; therefore he says, “the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you.” For we shall not do these things unpunished, nor shall we enjoy as much pleasure as the punishment we shall undergo. “For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in sanctification.” Since he said “his brother,” and added that God avenges, he spoke so to show that even if an unbeliever suffers this, the one who did it will pay the penalty. What he says is this: It is not to avenge that man that he punishes you, but because you insulted him [God]: he himself called you; you insulted the one who called you. Therefore he added, “Therefore whoever disregards this disregards not man but God, who has given his Holy Spirit to us.” So whether you corrupt the queen, he says, or your own slave woman who has a husband, the charge is the same. Why? Because he does not avenge the persons wronged, but himself; for you were equally defiled, you equally insulted God. For both the one and the other are adultery, since both the one and the other are marriage. And even if you do not commit adultery but commit sexual immorality, although the prostitute has no husband, nevertheless God avenges it, since he avenges himself. For you do this not so much out of contempt for her as for God; and it is plain from this: you do it hiding from her, but you do not regard God who sees. For tell me, if someone honoured by the king with the purple robe and ten thousand other honours, and commanded to live worthily of the honour, went away and corrupted himself with some woman, whom has he insulted? Her, or the king who gave him the honour? She too has been insulted, but not equally. Therefore, I beg you, let us guard against this sin. For just as we punish our wives when, living with us, they give themselves to others, so we too are punished, even if not by the laws of the Romans, yet by God. For this too is adultery. For adultery is not only for a woman joined to another to commit adultery, but also for one who is himself bound to a wife. Attend carefully to what I say; for though what is said is burdensome to many, yet it is necessary to say it, so as to correct things for the future. Adultery is not only this, when we corrupt a woman joined to a husband; but even if she is free and unbound, while we ourselves are bound to a wife, the act is adultery. For what if the woman with whom adultery is committed is not bound? But you are bound; you have transgressed the law; you have wronged your own flesh. For why, tell me, do you punish your wife, even if she commits immorality with an unbound man who has no wife? Because it is adultery. And yet the man who committed immorality with her has no wife; but she is bound to a husband. Then you too are bound to a wife; so that your act too is equally adultery. “For whoever divorces,” it says, “causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” If the one who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, does not the one who, having his own wife, also corrupts himself with this woman, do this much more? It is plain to everyone. But to you men these things have been said sufficiently; for of such Christ too says, “Their worm will not die, and the fire will not be quenched.” But for the sake of the young it is necessary to speak to you; or rather, not so much for their sake as for yours; for these things suit not them only, but you too; and how, I will now say. The one who has not learned to commit sexual immorality will not know adultery either; but the one who wallows with prostitutes will quickly come to that too, [with other men’s] wives. … What then do I advise? To cut out the roots: all of you who have young sons and are going to lead them into the life of the world, draw them quickly under the yoke of marriage. For since the desires trouble them while they are still young, restrain them during the time before marriage with exhortations, threats, fears, promises, ten thousand other means; and at the time of marriage [let no one delay. See, I speak] words [like a matchmaker’s], that you should join your sons [to wives]. But I am not ashamed to say these things, since Paul too was not ashamed to say, “Do not deprive one another,” which seems more shameful than this; yet he was not ashamed. For he paid attention not to the words, but to the deeds accomplished through the words. When your son grows up, then, before military service, before any other career, take thought for his marriage. And if he sees that you are bringing him his bride quickly, and that the time between is short, he will be able to endure the flame; but if he perceives that you are careless and slow and are waiting until he acquires large revenues, and only then will make his marriage, despairing at the length of time he will quickly slip into sexual immorality. But alas! Here too the root of evils is the love of money. For since no one cares how his son may become self-controlled and decent, but all are mad for gold, for this reason no one takes this trouble. Therefore I beg you, first set their souls in order. For if he comes to his bride chaste, if he has seen her body alone, his longing will be strong and the fear of God greater, and the marriage truly honourable, receiving pure and undefiled bodies, and the offspring will be full of great blessing, and the bridegroom and the bride will yield to one another; for both, being inexperienced in other ways, will submit to one another. But a young man who begins to be licentious and has experienced the ways of prostitutes will praise his own wife up to the first evening and the second; but after that he will quickly slip back to that licentiousness, seeking the loose and disorderly laughter, the words full of great vulgarity, the effeminate postures, all the other indecency which it is not bearable for us to name. But the freeborn woman will not endure to supply these, nor to defile herself. For she was pledged to her husband for partnership in life and the bearing of children, not for indecency and laughter; that she may keep the house, that she may teach him too to be dignified, not that she may supply him with the kindling of immorality. But do the ways of the prostitute seem sweet to you? I know it too; for Scripture says this as well: “Honey drips from the lips of a prostitute.” For this is why I do all these things, so that you may not taste that honey; for it turns at once into gall. And Scripture says this very thing: “[which] for a season smooths your throat, but afterward you will find it more bitter than gall, and sharpened more than a two-edged sword.” What do you say? Bear with me as I utter something, so to speak, unclean, and as I lay aside shame and blushing; for I do not suffer this willingly, but because of those who are not ashamed of the deeds I am forced myself to speak the words. And we see many such things in the Scriptures too. For Ezekiel too, reproaching Jerusalem, utters many such things and is not ashamed; and rightly; for he did not say them from his own passion, but from care. For even if the words seem unseemly, the purpose is not unseemly, but entirely fitting for one who wishes to cast uncleanness out of the soul; for if the shameless soul does not hear the very words, it is not put to shame. For a physician too, wishing to remove putrefaction, first puts his fingers into the wound; and unless he first defiles his healing hands, he will not be able to heal. So I too, unless I first defile the mouth that heals your passions, shall not be able to heal you. Or rather, neither is this defiled, nor are those hands. Why? Because the uncleanness is not natural, nor from our own body, as there it is not from his hands, but from others’. And if, where the body is another’s, he does not refuse to dip his own hands, will we refuse, tell me, where the body is our own? For you are our body, weak and unclean, but ours.

What then is it that I say, and for which I have given so long an exhortation? That a garment which your slave wears you would never choose to put on, loathing it for its filth, but would choose rather to be naked than to use it; yet a body unclean and filthy, used not by your servant only but by ten thousand others, [you use, and do you blush at] hearing this? Be ashamed at the deeds, not at the words. And I pass over all the rest: the perverse and foul character, the slavish and servile character of her whole life. Tell me, do you and your servant go to the same woman? And would that it were only your servant, but even the executioner! And you would not endure to take hold of the executioner’s hands; but the woman who has become one body with him [you embrace], and do you not fear? Are you not ashamed, not abashed, not in anguish? I spoke to your fathers, that they must quickly bring you to marriage; but nevertheless neither are you free from liability to punishment. For if there had not been many other young men living in self-control, both of old and now, perhaps you would have some defence; but if there are, how will you be able to say, “We could not restrain the flame of desire”? For those who were able accuse you, by sharing the same nature. Hear Paul saying, “Pursue peace and sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord.” Is this threat not enough to frighten you? Do you see others living self-controlled throughout and passing their lives in dignity, and do you not hold out even through the years of youth? Do you see others who have wrestled down pleasure ten thousand times, and do you not endure even once? If you wish, I will tell you the cause. For youth is not the cause; otherwise all the young would be licentious; but we push ourselves into the fire. For when you go up to the theatre and sit feasting your eyes on the naked limbs of women, for the moment you have been pleased, but afterwards you have nursed a great fever from it. When you see women appearing as if in the very shape of the body, when there are spectacles and songs that contain nothing else than perverse loves (“So-and-so,” it says, “loved so-and-so, and did not obtain her, and hanged himself,” and perverse loves rolled out even toward mothers); when you take these in through hearing, and through women, and through images, and now even through old men (for many put masks on themselves and play the woman there), how, tell me, will you be able to be self-controlled any longer, when those stories, those spectacles, those songs hold your soul, and such dreams follow after? For the soul is naturally disposed, for the most part, to imagine such things as it wishes and desires by day. When then you both see shameful things there and hear words more shameful, and receive the wounds but apply no remedies, how will the putrefaction not naturally increase? How will the disease not grow worse, and much more than in our bodies? For the will receives correction more lightly than bodies do. For there medicines and physicians and time are needed; but here it is enough to will, to become either good or evil. So you have received the disease more readily. When then we gather together what harms, and take no account of what helps, when will there be any health? Therefore Paul too said, “like the Gentiles who do not know God.” Let us be ashamed, let us fear, if the Gentiles who do not know God are often self-controlled; let us be abashed when we are worse than they. It is easy to achieve self-control if we are willing, if we lead ourselves away from what harms; just as it is not easy even to escape sexual immorality if we are not willing. For what is easier than walking in the marketplace? But through great softness it has become difficult, not for women only, but now even for men. What is easier than sleeping? But we have made this too difficult. Many of the rich, at least, toss about the whole night, because they do not wait for the need of sleep and then sleep. And in general nothing is difficult when we are willing, just as nothing is easy when we are unwilling; for we are masters of everything. Therefore Scripture too says, “If you are willing and listen to me”; and again, “If you are not willing,” it says, “and do not listen to me.” So everything lies in willing and not willing. Therefore we are both punished and praised. May we become among those who are praised and obtain the good things promised, by the grace and loving-kindness, and so on.

“But concerning brotherly love you have no need for us to write to you; for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do this toward all the brothers throughout Macedonia.” Why is it that, having spoken to them vehemently about self-control, and being about to speak about the duty of working and about not grieving for the departed, he sets down love, which was the chief of all good things, by way of omission, saying, “You have no need for us to write to you”? This too comes from great wisdom and spiritual teaching. For he indicates two things here: one, that the matter is so necessary that it needs no teaching (for things that are very great are plain to all); second, that he shames them more than if he had exhorted them by saying it. For one who thinks they have succeeded, and for that reason does not exhort, would, if they had not succeeded, have led them on all the more. And see: he does not speak of love toward all, but of love toward the brothers. “You have no need for us to write to you.” He should then have kept silent and said nothing, if there was no need. But by saying “there is no need,” he made it greater than if he had said it. “For you yourselves are taught by God.” And see with how great praise he set God over them as teacher of this. You do not need, he says, to learn from man. Which the prophet too says: “And they shall all be taught of God.” “For you yourselves,” he says, “are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do this toward all the brothers throughout Macedonia,” and toward all the others, he says. These things are very shaming, so as to make them do it. And I do not say simply that you are taught by God, but I know it from what you do. And he bore them much witness on this account. “But we exhort you, brothers, to abound more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk becomingly toward outsiders and have need of nothing.” Here he shows how many evils idleness causes, and how many good things work; and he makes it clear from our own affairs, as he does in many places, and that wisely; for most people are led more by these than by spiritual things. For it belongs to love of neighbour not to receive from them but to supply them. And see the wisdom: wishing to exhort and to admonish, he puts their good deed in the middle, so that they might breathe again both after the former admonition and after the threat, when he said, “Therefore whoever disregards this disregards not man but God,” and so that they might not kick against it. And this comes from working: not receiving nor being idle, but working and supplying others. For “it is more blessed,” it says, “to give than to receive.” “And to work,” he says, “with your hands.” Where then are those who seek spiritual work? Do you see how he took away every pretext from them by saying, “with your hands”? Does anyone work at fasting with his hands? or at all-night vigils? or at sleeping on the ground? No one would say this; but he speaks about spiritual work; for it is truly spiritual to work and supply others, and nothing is equal to it. “So that you may walk becomingly,” he says. Do you see how he touches them? He did not say, “so that you may not be disgraced by begging,” but he hinted at the same thing, and puts it more gently, so as both to strike them and not to burden them heavily. For if those among us are scandalised by these things, much more those outside, who find ten thousand charges and handles, when they see a healthy man, able to support himself, begging and needing others. Therefore they even call us “Christ-traffickers.” “Because of this,” it says, “the name of God is blasphemed.” But he set down none of these things, but what was most able to touch them: the disgrace. “But we do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, [that you may not grieve as] the rest who have no hope.”

These two things above all were ruining them, poverty and dejection, which ruin all men too. See then how he heals them. Their poverty came from their goods having been seized. And if he commands those whose goods were seized for Christ’s sake to support themselves by working, much more the others. That their goods were seized is plain from his saying, “You became imitators of the churches in Judea.” How? Because writing to them he said, “And [you accepted joyfully] the seizure of your [possessions].” Here then he raises the subject of the resurrection. And what? Had he not spoken with them about this? But here he hints at another mystery. What is this? That “we who are alive, who are left,” he says, “until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.” The word about the resurrection is enough to comfort the one in grief; and what is now said is enough to make the resurrection credible. But first let us speak of what he himself said: “But we do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, that you may not grieve as the rest who have no hope.” See how gently he speaks here too. He did not say, “You are so foolish,” as to the Corinthians, “so senseless, that knowing the resurrection you grieve like those who do not believe”; but very gently, “We do not wish,” he said, respecting their other virtue. And he did not say “concerning the dead,” laying down comfort straight from the opening. “That you may not grieve,” he says, “as the rest who have no hope.” So beating the breast over the departed belongs to those who have no hope; naturally. For a soul that knows nothing about the resurrection, but thinks this death to be death, naturally beats itself and laments and mourns unbearably as for those who have perished; but you who expect a resurrection, why do you wail? So wailing belongs to those who have no hope. Hear, you women who love lamentation, who are carried away unbearably into mourning, that you are doing the things of the pagans. And if grieving for the departed belongs to pagans, beating the breast and tearing the cheeks, to whom, tell me, does it belong? Why do you lament, if you believe that he will rise, that he has not perished, that the thing is sleep and repose? “For the sake of companionship,” she says, “and protection, care of affairs, all the other service.” When then you lose a child at an untimely age, not yet able to do anything, why do you lament? What do you miss? “He showed good hopes,” she says, “and I expected that he would protect me. Therefore I miss my husband, therefore my son; therefore I beat myself and lament, not disbelieving the resurrection, but being left without help, and having lost my protector, my companion, the one who shared everything, who comforted me; for these things I mourn. I know that he will rise, but I cannot bear the separation in between. A great crowd of affairs flows in upon me; I lie exposed to all who wish to wrong me; those of the servants who feared me before now despise me and trample on me; if anyone was benefited, he has forgotten his kindness; if anyone suffered ill from him, holding a grudge against the departed, he lets his anger loose on me. These things do not allow me to bear widowhood, to mourn gently; for these I beat myself, for these I lament.” How then shall we comfort such women? What shall we say? How shall we drive off their grief? First I will try to refute them, that the lament comes not from these words but from irrational passion. For if you mourn for these reasons, you ought to mourn the departed always; but if after a year has passed you have forgotten, as though nothing had happened, you are not lamenting the departed, nor his protection. “But you cannot bear the separation, nor the breaking off of companionship?” And what would those say who even enter into second marriages? Surely [they bear it] well; for they do not miss the first husbands. But let us not direct our words to these, but to those who keep their goodwill toward the departed. Why do you mourn the child? Why the husband? The one, she says, because I did not enjoy him; the other, because I expected to enjoy him longer. But this very thing, how great unbelief it is, to think that your husband or child set you in safety, and not God! How do you not think that you provoke him? For this is why he often takes them, so that she may not be so attached to them as to draw her hope away to them. For God is jealous, and wishes above all to be loved by us, and this because he loves us greatly. For you know that this is the habit of those who love madly: they are very jealous, and would choose to give up their life rather than be surpassed by any of their rivals. For these reasons God took him, for these reasons [I say] these words.