Homilies on 2 Corinthians 2.6–3.1

But we do not ask in this way. Rather, as the plough opens the furrows in rich soil, so we pray that it may happen here, so that, being ploughed up in the depth of their mind, they may receive what is sown and hold fast with exactness everything they have heard. That is why he goes on to say, “And may he confirm his faith in their minds,” that is, so that it may not be spread on the surface but may strike its root deep. “That he may reveal to them the gospel of righteousness.” He shows that the veil is double: one because the eyes of their mind are closed, the other because the gospel is veiled to them. That is why above he said, “That he may open the ears of their hearts,” and here, “That he may reveal to them the gospel of righteousness”; that is, that he may both make them wise and fit to receive it, and teach them and sow the seeds. For if they are fit, but God does not reveal it, there is no benefit; and if he reveals it, but they do not receive it, the loss again comes round to the same. That is why we ask for both: that he may open their hearts and that he may reveal the gospel. For there is no gain from eyes that see if the thing is covered, just as there is none from its being uncovered if the eyes are not awake. Both come about if they first choose it. What is “the gospel of righteousness”? That which makes people righteous. By these words he leads them to desire baptism, showing that the gospel is not only of forgiveness of sins but also productive of righteousness.

“That he may give them a godly mind, sober reasoning, and a virtuous way of life.” Let the faithful hear this, all who are nailed to worldly affairs. For if we are told to ask these things for the uninitiated, consider in what state we who ask them for others ought to be; for one’s way of life must be a match for the gospel. That is why the order of the prayer passes from doctrines to the way of life. Having said, “That he may reveal to them the gospel of righteousness,” it added, “That he may give them a godly mind.” What is “godly”? That God may dwell in it: “For I will dwell in them,” he says, “and walk among them.” When the mind becomes righteous, when it has stripped off its sins, it becomes a house of God; and when God dwells in it, there will no longer be anything merely human in it. So the mind becomes inspired, uttering everything from there, as a house of God with God dwelling within. So the one who speaks shamefully does not have a godly mind, nor the one who delights in coarse jesting and laughter. “Sober reasoning.” And what is it to have sober reasoning? To possess health of soul; for one held by a desire for wickedness and agitated about present things would not be sober, that is, sound. And as the sick man desires even what is unsuitable, so does this man. “And a virtuous way of life.” For doctrines need a way of life. Hear this, you who go to baptism at the end of your life. We pray that after baptism you may also have a way of life; but you hasten and do everything so as to depart without one. For what of it, if you do become righteous, but from faith alone? We pray that you may also have the boldness that comes from good deeds. “To consider always his things, to think his things, to meditate on his things.” For we ask for sober reasoning and a virtuous way of life not for one day or two or three only, but through the whole of life and existence; and the foundation of all good things, to think his things. For “all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.” How then could this come about? For along with prayer we must contribute our own part too: if we occupy ourselves with his law day and night. That is why he adds this request: “to occupy themselves with his law.” And as above he said “always,” so here he says “day and night.” That is why I feel shame because of those who scarcely appear in church once a year. What defense could they have who are commanded not simply to converse with the law but to occupy themselves with it day and night, that is, to dwell on it constantly, and who do this for not even the smallest part of their life? “To remember his commandments, to keep his ordinances.”

Do you see an excellent chain, and how each link holds on to the next, joined more securely and more beautifully than any golden chain? For having asked for a godly mind, he says how it might come about. How might it? By meditating on him always. And how might that happen? By attending constantly to the law. And how might people be persuaded to do this? If they kept his commandments; or rather, from attending to the law comes keeping the commandments too, just as from thinking his things and having a godly mind comes meditating on his things. For each of the things mentioned both helps to build the next and is built up by it, holding it together and being held together by it.

“Let us pray still more earnestly for them.” Since the soul is apt to fall asleep in a long prayer, he rouses it again. For he wants to ask for some great and lofty things again; that is why he says, “Let us pray still more earnestly for them.” What is this? “That he may deliver them from every evil and wrongful thing.” Here we ask for them not to enter into temptation and to be freed from every plot, bodily and spiritual alike. That is why he goes on, “From every devilish sin and every snare of the adversary,” meaning temptations and sins. For sin easily besets us, standing on every side, in front and behind, and so overthrows us. Since he has said what must be done on our part (to occupy ourselves with his law, to remember his commandments), [he shows] next that even these are not enough unless God himself is present and helps. “For unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored in vain”; and especially with these, who still lie exposed to the devil and are under his rule. You who have been initiated know this. Remember, then, those words by which you renounced his tyranny, bending the knee and deserting to the King, and uttering those awesome words by which … And he calls him the devil, that is, the slanderer, since he slanders God to men and us to God, and again us to one another. At one time he slandered Job to God, saying, “Does Job worship the Lord for nothing?”; and again God to Job: “Fire came down from heaven”; and again God to Adam, when he said that their eyes would be opened; and God to many people of the present day, saying, “God does not provide for visible things, but has left your affairs to demons”; and to many of the Jews he slandered Christ, calling him a deceiver and a sorcerer. How he operates, someone perhaps wants to hear. When he does not find a godly mind, when he does not find a sober soul, when one does not remember God’s commandments nor keep his ordinances, then he takes him captive and goes off. Adam, at any rate, if he had remembered the commandment that said, “From every tree you shall eat,” if he had kept the ordinance that said, “On the day you eat, you shall surely die,” would not have suffered what he suffered.

“That he may count them worthy in due season of the washing of regeneration, of the forgiveness of sins.” We ask for some things present and some to come; and we teach the wisdom of the washing, and in the asking we instruct them to know its power. For from here the discourse already … and we are born again, from the waters as from a womb; so that they may not say, like Nicodemus, “How can someone be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Then, since he mentioned forgiveness of sins, he confirms it by what follows: “of the garment of incorruption.” For one who puts on sonship plainly becomes incorruptible. What is “in due season”? When one is well disposed, when one approaches with eagerness and faith; for this is the due season of the believer.

“That he may bless their goings in and their goings out,” their whole life. Here they are told to ask also for something bodily, as being still weaker. “Their houses and their households,” that is, whether they have servants or relatives or any others belonging to them. For these were the prizes of the Old Covenant, and nothing seemed so dreadful as widowhood, childlessness, untimely bereavements, famine, or things not going prosperously for them. That is why he lets them ask for these too, raising them up little by little. Christ does this too, and Paul, recalling the old blessings: Christ when he says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”; Paul, “Honor your father and your mother, and you shall live long on the earth.” “That he may bless and increase their children, and [bring them] to the measure of [maturity] …”

Here again something both bodily and spiritual, as for those still in a more childish state. Then what follows is wholly spiritual: “That he may direct for them all that lies before them for their good.” Not simply what lies before them, but for their good. For often a journey lies ahead, but it is not beneficial; or some other such thing, but it is not profitable. From this they are taught to give thanks to God in everything, as happening for their good. And after all this he now bids them rise. For having first cast them to the ground, when they have asked what they asked and are filled with boldness, the word raises them up and bids them now to take up supplication to God themselves. Some things we say; others we entrust to them, already opening to them the doors of asking—just as with children we first teach them ourselves and then bid them speak for themselves—saying, “Ask for the angel of peace, you catechumens.” For there is an angel who punishes, as when it says, “a sending of evil angels”; there is a destroyer. That is why we bid them ask for the angel of peace, teaching them to seek peace, which is the bond of all good things, so as to be freed from every fight, every war, every faction. “That all that lies before you may be peaceful.” For even if something is burdensome, if it has peace it is light. That is why Christ said, “My peace I give to you.” For the devil has no weapon so strong as strife, enmity, and war. “Ask that this present day and all the days of your life may be peaceful.” Do you see how again he bids the whole of life be spent in virtue? “That your end may be Christian”: the chief of good things, what is honorable and beneficial. For what is not honorable is not beneficial either; for with us the nature of what is beneficial is different from the common opinion. “To commend yourselves to the living God and to his Christ.” For we do not yet entrust them with prayers for others; it is enough if they are able to pray for themselves.

Do you see a prayer complete, as regards both doctrines and way of life? For when we speak of the gospel, of the garment of incorruption, of the washing of regeneration, we have spoken all the doctrines; when of a godly mind, of sober reasoning, and of the other things we mentioned, we have pointed to the way of life. Then we bid them bow their heads, taking God’s blessing as a proof that the prayers have been heard. For it is not a man who blesses; but through his hand and tongue we bring the heads of those present to the King himself. And all shout the “Amen.”

Why have I said all this? To teach that we must seek the good of others, so that the faithful may not think it does not concern them when these things are said. For the deacon does not say to the walls, “Let us pray for the catechumens.” But some are so foolish and sluggish and dissolute that they stand and chatter not only during the time of the catechumens but also during the time of the faithful. That is why everything is turned upside down, why everything is ruined: because at the time when we must above all [propitiate] God … For at the prayers of the faithful we are bidden to approach God, the lover of humankind, for bishops, for presbyters, for emperors, for rulers, for land and sea, for the weather, for the whole world. When, then, we who ought to have such boldness as to pray for strangers do not pray soberly even for ourselves, what defense do we have? What pardon? So I urge you, considering all these things, to know the time of prayer, to be lifted on high, to be freed from earth, and to touch the very vaults of heaven, so that we may make God merciful and obtain the promised good things; which may we all obtain, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, might, and honor to the Father together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.

“… not in fleshly wisdom, but in [the grace of God] we conducted ourselves in the world.”

[2.] Here again he reveals to us another ground of comfort, not a small one but a very great one, able to set upright a mind that is sinking under dangers. Since he had said, “God delivered us,” and had ascribed the whole to God’s mercies and to their prayers, so as not to make the hearer careless by this, relying only on God’s mercy and on the prayers of others, he shows that they themselves also contributed not a little of their own. He made this clear earlier too, saying, “As the sufferings of Christ abound, our comfort also abounds”; but here he mentions another achievement of their own as well. What is it? “That we conduct ourselves everywhere in the world with a pure and guileless conscience,” he says. “This brings us no small consolation and comfort; or rather, not comfort only, but something else much greater than comfort: a boast.” He said this both to teach them not to lose heart in afflictions but even to take pride in them when they have a pure conscience, and gently to strike at the false apostles. And as in the first letter he says, “Christ sent me to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ be emptied,” and, “that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God,” so here too he says, “not in wisdom, but in the grace of Christ.” By saying “not in wisdom” he also hinted at something else, that is, not in deceit, and in this way he strikes at the learning from outside. “For our boast is this,” he says, “the testimony of our conscience”; that is, our conscience, which has no ground to condemn us as men persecuted for wicked deeds. “For even if we suffer countless dreadful things, even if we are struck on every side and are in danger, it is enough for our consolation—or rather not only for consolation, but for our crowning—that our conscience is pure and testifies for us that we suffer these things not for anything wicked, but for what pleases God: for virtue, for wisdom, for the salvation of the many.” That first comfort, then, was from God; this one they themselves contributed, from the purity of their life. That is why he calls it a boast, because it was the achievement of their own virtue.

What then is the boast, and what does our conscience testify for us? “That in simplicity and godly sincerity”; that is, nothing deceitful, no hypocrisy, no irony, no flattery, no plotting and deceit, nothing else of the kind, but in all freedom, in simplicity, in truth, with a pure and guileless purpose, with an undeceiving mind, having nothing disguised or festering beneath. “Not in fleshly wisdom”: that is, not in villainy or wickedness, nor in cleverness of words or tangles of sophisms; this is what he calls fleshly wisdom. And the very thing on which they prided themselves he disowns and thrusts away, showing with great superiority that it is not worth boasting of, and that he not only does not seek it but beats it off and is ashamed of it. “But in the grace of God we conducted ourselves in the world.” What is “in the grace of God”? “Displaying the wisdom and the power given us by him, through signs, through overcoming wise men, orators, philosophers, kings, and peoples, though we were unlearned and brought nothing of the outside wisdom with us.” And it is no ordinary comfort and boast to be conscious that they did not use human power, but achieved everything by divine grace. “In the world”: not in Corinth only, but everywhere in the world. “And more especially toward you.” What is “more especially toward you”? “We conducted ourselves in the grace of God; for we showed signs and wonders among you, and greater strictness, and a blameless life.” For this too he calls the grace of God, ascribing his own achievements to it. For there he even went beyond the bounds, offering the gospel free of charge, because he spared their weakness.

“For we write you nothing other than what you read or also acknowledge.” Since he had uttered great things about himself and seemed to bear witness to himself, which was a burdensome thing, he again brings them forward as witnesses of what is said. “Let no one think,” he says, “that what is said is a boast of empty words; for we declare to you what you yourselves know. And you, before others, would know that we do not lie, that what you know of us in our deeds, this we say in our letters too; and your testimony does not contradict our letters, but the knowledge you had of us beforehand agrees with the reading.” “As you also have acknowledged us in part.” “For you know our affairs not by hearsay,” he says, “but from experience itself.” He said “in part” out of modesty. For this is his habit: when he says something great under the pressure of necessity (and he does not do it otherwise), he quickly tones down again the swelling of what has been said. “And I hope that you will acknowledge to the end …”