Homilies on 1 Timothy 17.1–17.2

“Teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but has a morbid craving for controversies and disputes about words, from which come envy … and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. Keep away from such people. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and it is clear that we cannot take anything out.”

The teacher needs not only authority but also much gentleness, just as he needs not only gentleness but also authority. Blessed Paul teaches all this, sometimes saying, “Command and teach these things,” and sometimes, “Teach and urge these things.” If physicians urge the sick, not so that they themselves may obtain health, but so that they may free them from illness and raise them from their beds, much more must we use this manner with those we teach, urging them. Blessed Paul does not refuse even to be their slave, saying: “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake”; and again, “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos.” And he serves in this slavery with eagerness; for it is not slavery, but better than freedom. That man is a slave, he says, who commits sin.

“If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up, knowing nothing.” So being lifted up into folly comes not from knowing but from not knowing. One who knows the words of godliness knows above all how to be moderate; one who understands the sound words is not sick. What inflammation is in bodies, folly is in souls; and just as there we do not call what is inflamed healthy, so here we do not call the boastful healthy. So it is possible to know something and know nothing; for one who does not know what he ought to know knows nothing. And that pride comes from knowing nothing is clear from this: Christ emptied himself; one who knows this will never be proud. Man has nothing except from God; so he will not be proud: “What do you have that you did not receive?” He himself washed the disciples’ feet; how will one who knows this be lifted up? That is why he says, “When you have done everything, say, We are unprofitable servants.” The tax collector won approval by humility alone; the Pharisee perished through boastfulness. So the one who is puffed up knows none of these things. Again, Christ himself says, “If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness about the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike me?”

“Having a morbid craving,” he says, “for controversies.” So inquiring is being sick. “And disputes about words”: naturally. When the soul is feverish with reasonings, when it is tossed by a storm, then it inquires; but when it is healthy, then it does not inquire, but receives the faith. From inquiry and disputes about words nothing can be found. What faith alone promises, inquiry, once it takes the matter up, neither shows nor lets one understand. If someone shuts his eyes and wants to find something he is looking for, he will not be able to; or again, if with his eyes open he buries himself underground, turns away from the sunbeam, and searches there, he will find nothing. So without faith nothing is found, and battles must arise. “From which come blasphemies, evil suspicions”; that is, wicked opinions and doctrines arising from the inquiries. Then we suspect of God what we ought not, when … leisure or idle talk. Or he means this by “constant friction” (diaparatribai): as a diseased sheep fills the healthy ones with disease, so too do these wicked men. “And deprived of the truth,” he says, “imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” Do you see how many things he says disputes about words produce? Greed, ignorance, folly; for ignorance produces folly.

“Keep away from these,” he says. He did not say, “Come to grips with them,” but “Keep away,” that is, turn aside from them. “Have nothing more to do with a heretical man,” he says, “after a first and second admonition.” He shows that they have their very ignorance not so much from ignorance as from slackness. For when will you be able to persuade men who are fighting for money? You will not persuade such people unless you give them something in return; and not even so will you satisfy their desire: “For the eye of the greedy man,” it says, “is not satisfied with his portion.” One must therefore turn away from them, as they are incorrigible. And if he advises Timothy, who had every need to fight, not to come to grips with them or engage them, much more does this apply to us who are learners, in the rank of disciples.

Having said that they imagine godliness to be a means of gain, he added, “But godliness with contentment is great gain”: not when one has money, but when one does not. So that Timothy might not fall into dejection because of his poverty, he raises him up and sets him on his feet. They think, he says, that it is gain. And it is, but not in that way, but in a greater way. Having overthrown their kind of gain, he exalts this one. That this kind of gain is nothing is clear from its remaining here; is this not clear? “That we brought nothing into the world”; so we will take nothing out; for nature came naked and departs naked. We have no need, then, of superfluous things: if we brought nothing in, we will depart having nothing. We should eat only so much and such food as suffices to nourish us; we should wear only such clothing as covers us and wraps our nakedness, nothing superfluous; and any garment at all can do this. Then he exhorts them on the basis of the things here: “But those who desire ….”

He did not simply say, “the rich,” but “those who desire.” It is possible for one who has money to manage it well, despising it and distributing it to the poor. So he does not mean such people, but those who are eager for wealth: “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare of the devil, and into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people ….” Well did he say “plunge,” so that they cannot even come up again. “Into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all evils; through craving it some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” See, he sets down two things; but what seems stronger to them, “many pangs,” he put here last. And these things one can learn in no other way than from those who lament.

“But you, O man of God.” A great title! All people are God’s, but properly the righteous, not only by reason of creation but also by reason of belonging to him. If you are a man of God, he says, do not seek superfluous things that do not lead to God, but “flee these things, pursue righteousness.” Both are said with intensity. He did not say, “Keep away,” and “Approach,” but “Flee,” and “Pursue righteousness,” so as not to be greedy; “godliness,” that of right doctrines; “faith,” which is opposed to inquiry; “love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of eternal life.” See the reward too. “To which you were called, and you made the good confession in hope of eternal life before many witnesses.” That is, do not shame that boldness. Why do you labor for nothing?

What temptation and snare does he say those who want to be rich undergo? It leads them astray from the faith, surrounds them with dangers, and makes them more timid. “And senseless desires,” he says. How is it not a senseless desire when they keep fools and dwarfs, not out of love for humankind but for amusement; when they shut up fish in their courtyards, rear wild beasts, and are no less fond of them than of their children? All these things are senseless and superfluous, nothing necessary, nothing useful. “Senseless and harmful desires,” he says. What harmful ones? When they fall into absurd loves, when they covet their neighbor’s goods, when they grapple with luxury, when they crave drunkenness, slaughter, and the destruction of others. Many, from such loves, have even aimed at tyranny and perished. Truly such a man toils for what is useless, or rather harmful. And well did he say, “have wandered away from the faith”; for the love of money does not let them see the road, drawing their eyes to itself and stealing them away little by little. Just as someone walking a straight road with his mind on something else walks on, but unknowingly often passes the very city to which he was hastening, his feet carrying him along idly and in vain, so too is the love of money. “And pierced themselves with many pangs.” Do you see what he hinted at by “pierced”? What he wants to show by the vivid word is this: desires are thorns; and just as among thorns, wherever one touches them, he bloodies his hands and gets wounds, so too one who falls among desires suffers the same, and wraps his soul in pains. How many anxieties, how many pangs do those who are caught up in them have, tell me? It cannot be told.

That is why he says, “Flee these things, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” For gentleness comes from love. “Fight the good fight.” Here he praises his boldness and courage: you made your confession boldly, he says, before all. He also reminds him of his catechesis: “Take hold,” he says, “of eternal life.” So not confession alone is needed, but endurance too, so as to remain always in the confession, and a fierce struggle and countless sweats; rightly, so as not to be overturned, for many are the stumbling blocks, many the hindrances. That is why the road is narrow and hard. One must be gathered in on every side, girded on every side. Countless pleasures appear on every side, drawing the soul’s eyes: the pleasures of bodies, of money, of luxury, of ease, of glory, of anger, of power, of love of rule; and they appear with bright and lovely faces, able to draw in the excitable, those who do not ardently love the truth. For truth is austere and has nothing delightful about it. Why? Because it promises all pleasure in the age to come, while those pleasures hold out honors and delights at once, … not true, but colored over. If, then, someone is vulgar, soft, and unmanly, he will hold to those, slack toward the labors that virtue demands. So too in the contests outside the church: one who does not ardently love the crowns may give himself from the start to banquets and drinking; so at any rate the cowardly and unmanly among the boxers do; but those who look to the crown take countless blows, for they are nourished and strengthened by the hope of what is to come.

Let us flee, then, the root of evils, and we shall flee everything. “The love of money,” he says, “is a root.” Paul uttered it, or rather Christ through Paul. Let us see how. The very experience of affairs bears witness. What evil does not come about because of money; or rather not because of money, but because of the evil choice of those who do not know how to use it? It was possible to use money as one ought, possible even to inherit the kingdom through it. But as it is, what was given for the help of the poor, for the consolation of our sins, for good repute with God and for his good pleasure, we use against the wretched poor, or rather against our own souls, and to offend God. One man took another’s money and clothed him in poverty, but himself in death; he wastes the other away here with poverty, but himself with everlasting punishment. Is it equal? What evil, then, does not come about because of these things? Not greed? Not robberies? Not lamentations? Not enmities? Not battles? Not contentions? Have they not stretched out their hands even to the dead? Even against fathers and brothers? Have they not overturned the laws of nature and God’s commands and simply everything, gripped by that desire? Are not the law courts there because of these things? Take away the love of money, and war has ceased, battle has ceased, enmity has ceased, strife and contention have ceased. Such men ought to be driven out of the world like destroyers and wolves. Just as contrary and violent winds falling on a calm sea stir it up so that even the sand of the bottom mixes with the waves above, so the lovers of money turn everything upside down. The lover of money knows no friend; why do I say friend? He does not even know God himself, for he is gripped by that desire. Do you not see the Titans advancing sword in hand? That is a pretense of madness. But these are not like that; they are truly mad and out of their minds. If you strip their soul, you will find it so armed, holding not one sword or two, but countless, recognizing no one, raging against all, leaping on everyone and barking against everyone, slaughtering not dogs but human souls, and uttering great blasphemies against heaven itself. By these men everything has been overturned; everything has perished through the madness for money.

Whom, whom shall I accuse, I do not know; so completely does this plague grip everyone, some in greater, some in lesser degree, but all nevertheless. Just as a fire falling on wood overturns and devastates everything, so this has overturned the world: kings, rulers, private persons, the poor, women, men, children, all are gripped equally by the evil. As though a gloom had blown over the world, no one comes to his senses; countless accusations against greed are made privately and publicly, but there is correction nowhere. What then could be done? How shall we quench the flame? It is possible, even if it has risen to heaven itself; we need only will it, and we shall certainly overcome the fire. As it grew through willing, so it will be destroyed through willing. Did not our own choice create it? Then our choice can destroy it. How will the willing arise? If we see its vanity and superfluity: that it cannot go with us there; that it leaves us even here; that it remains here, while the wounds we receive from it depart with us. If we see that there is great wealth there; if we compare this wealth with that, that this has countless dangers, a temporary pleasure, a pleasure mixed with dejection; if we consider well that wealth of eternal life, so we shall be able to despise this. If we see that it benefits us nothing, neither for glory, nor for health, nor for anything else, but on the contrary plunges us into ruin and destruction; if you learn that here you are rich and have many under you, but when you depart there you will depart desolate and naked. If we repeat these things to ourselves continually and hear them from others, perhaps there will be some health, some deliverance from this grievous punishment.

Is the pearl beautiful? But consider that it is sea water, that it once lay cast away in the bosom of the sea. Are gold and silver beautiful? But consider that they were and are earth and ashes. Are silk garments beautiful? But they are the weaving of worms. It is human supposition and prejudice; the beauty is not in the nature. Things that have beauty in their nature need no teachers. But if you see a bronze coin merely gilded over, at first you admire it and call it gold; but when those skilled in such things teach you the deception, your admiration goes out together with the deception. Do you see that its beauty is not in its nature? Nor is that of silver; for if you see tin, you admire it as silver, as you admire bronze as gold; and there is need of teachers to tell you what one should admire. So our eyes are not sufficient for discernment. But flowers are not so; they are much better than these. If you see a rose, you need no teachers; you know of yourself how to tell the anemone from violets; and so with lilies and each flower. So what happens is nothing but prejudice. And that this ruinous passion comes from prejudice, come, tell me: if the emperor decided to decree silver more precious than gold, would you not transfer your admiration and your love? So everywhere we are the slaves of greed and supposition. And that it is so, these things are honored for their rarity and not for their nature: there are fruits that are cheap among us but precious in the country of the Cappadocians, and more costly than our precious ones; others again in the country of the Seres, from which these silk garments come. And in spice-bearing Arabia and India, where the precious stones are, one can find many such things. So these things are prejudice, human supposition; and we do nothing by judgment, but at random and as it happens. Let us, then, at last come to our senses from this drunkenness; let us see what is truly beautiful, beautiful by nature, godliness and righteousness, so that we may obtain the promised good things, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, honor, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.