Homilies on 2 Corinthians 3.4

What word, then, is he speaking of? “For the Son of God,” he says, “who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not Yes and No.” This is why he brings the company of teachers into the midst, making the testimony trustworthy from this too, not only through those who heard but also through those who taught. And yet these were his disciples; but out of modesty he numbers them among the teachers. What is “was not Yes and No”? “I did not overturn,” he says, “what I said before in my preaching; I did not tell you now this, now that; for that would belong no longer to faith but to a mind gone astray.” “But in him it has become Yes.” That is, the word remains unshaken and firm. “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him, and in him their Amen, to the glory of God through us.” What is “all the promises of God”? The preaching promised many things, and they themselves announced and preached these many things. For they spoke of the resurrection, of the ascension, of incorruption, of the great prizes and of those ineffable good things. These promises, then, he says, remain unmoved, and there was no Yes and No in them; that is, what was said is not true at one time and false at another, as my visit was, but always true. First he contends for the doctrines of the faith and the word about Christ, saying, “My word and my preaching was not Yes and No”; then for the promises: “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.” And if what he promised is firm and he will certainly give it, much more is he himself, and the word about him, firm; and one cannot say that he is now and now is not, but he always is, and is the same. What is “In him is the Yes and the Amen”? It shows what will certainly be. For the promises have their fulfillment and accomplishment in him, not in man. Do not be afraid, then; for it is not a man, that you should suspect it, but God, who both said it and fulfills it. “To the glory of God through us.” What is “to the glory through us”? He fulfills them through us, that is, through his benefits to us, to his own glory; for this is what “to the glory of God” means. And if it is to the glory of God, it will certainly come about. For he will not disregard his own glory, even if he should disregard our salvation; and that, too, because he greatly loves humankind. And besides, our salvation is bound up with his glory in these things. So if the promises are for his glory, our salvation will certainly follow too. This he repeats continually in the letter to the Ephesians, saying, “to the praise of his glory,” and he puts it everywhere, showing that the outcome is necessary. This is what he says here too: his promises do not lie, for they not only save us but also glorify him. So do not think, “They were announced through us,” and then doubt; for they are not fulfilled through us but through him; and the promises too are his; for we have spoken to you not our own things but his.

“But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and has sealed us and given us the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts.” Again he confirms the future from the past. For if it is he who establishes us in Christ, that is, who does not let us be shaken from faith in Christ, and he himself who anointed us and gave the Spirit in our hearts, how will he not give what is to come? For if he gave the beginnings and the foundations, the root and the spring, namely the true knowledge of himself and the sharing of the Spirit, how will he not give what comes from these? For if those things are given for the sake of these, much more will he who gave these also grant those; and if he gave these to us when we were enemies, much more will he bestow those on us now that we have become friends. That is why he did not simply say “the Spirit,” but called it “the pledge,” so that from this you might be confident about the whole. For if he were not going to give the whole, he would not have chosen to give the pledge and lose it idly and in vain. And see Paul’s fair-mindedness. “Why need I say,” he says, “that the truth of the promises does not rest in us? Your very standing unshaken and firmly fixed does not rest in us, but this too is God’s. For it is God,” he says, “who establishes you.” So it is not we who make you firm; for we too need one who establishes us. So let no one think that the preaching is at risk because of us; God has taken the whole upon himself; the whole is his care. What is “anointed and sealed”? He gave the Spirit, through whom he did both, making us at once prophets and priests and kings; for in old times these classes were anointed. But we now have not one but all three dignities, and in a higher degree. For we are to enjoy a kingdom, and we become priests, offering our bodies as a sacrifice: “Present your members,” he says, “as a living sacrifice, pleasing to God”; and besides these we are made prophets too: “For what eye has not seen and ear has not heard, these things have been revealed to us.”

And we become kings in another way too, if we will master unruly thoughts. For that such a man is a king, and more so than the one who wears the diadem, I will now make plain to you. The king has many armies; but we too have more thoughts than they, for one cannot count the boundless multitude of thoughts within us. And not only a multitude is to be seen, but in this multitude of thoughts many [generals and captains, archers] and slingers too. What else makes a king? His robes? But this man too wears a better and finer robe, which neither moth eats nor time consumes. And he has a crown of many kinds: the crown of glory, the crown of the mercies of God (“Bless the Lord, O my soul,” it says, “who crowns you with mercy and compassion”); the crown of glory (“With glory and honor you have crowned him”); the crown of favor (“As with a shield of favor you have crowned us”); and the crown of graces (“For you shall receive a crown of graces on your head”). Do you see how this diadem is intricate and more beautiful? But let us examine the affairs of these kings again from the beginning, and more exactly. The one rules his bodyguards and commands everyone, and all obey and serve him; but I show you a greater rule here. The multitude is equal, or even greater; it remains to examine their obedience. And do not bring into the midst for me those who have fallen from their kingdoms and been slaughtered by their own bodyguards. Let us not bring these forward, but let us look for those who governed their kingdom well in both cases. You may set forth whichever kings you wish; but I set before you the patriarch … how many thoughts then rose up against him! Yet he subdued them all, and they all trembled before him more than bodyguards before a king; with a look alone he checked them all, and none of them dared even to mutter, but they bowed down and all gave way to him as to a king, though they were very sharp and very harsh. For the points of spears are not as fearful as those thoughts were then. Was not the sympathy of nature harder than spears? That is why they could cut his soul more than a sharpened point. For no spear could ever be as sharp as those thoughts, whose goads, sharpened and raised from below, from his very bowels, pierced through the righteous man’s mind. In the one case there is need of time and of deliberation, of a blow and of pain, and then death follows; but in the other there was need of none of these, so much swifter and keener were the wounds. Yet though so many thoughts were armed against him then, there was great calm, and all stood in good order, adorning him rather than terrifying him. See him, then, stretching out the knife, and set in the midst as many kings as you like, Augusti and Caesars: you will name nothing so great, nor be able to show such a posture, so noble and worthy of heaven. For against the mightiest tyranny that righteous man then set up a trophy; for nothing is more tyrannical than nature, though you set forth countless tyrants. Nature lay cast on the ground with its weapons and its whole army, and he stood with his hand raised, holding not a crown but a knife more splendid than any crown; and the people of angels applauded, and God proclaimed him from heaven. For since he lived as a citizen of heaven, from there he received the proclamation too. What is more splendid than this? Or rather, what could equal this trophy? For if, when an athlete had won, it was not a herald below but the king himself who rose from above and proclaimed the Olympic victor, would this not have seemed to him more splendid than the crowns, and would it not have turned the whole theater toward him? When then not a human king but God himself, not in this theater but in the theater of the world, before the people of angels and archangels, proclaims him, crying with a splendid voice from above, where shall we place this saint, tell me?

If you will, let us hear the voice itself. What then is the voice? “Abraham, Abraham, do not lay your hand on Isaac, nor do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, and you have not spared your beloved son for my sake.” What is this? Did he who knows all things before they come to be know it only now? And yet the man’s piety was plain even to a human being: he had given so many proofs of his devotion to God, when God said to him, “Go out from your land and from your kindred”; when, for God’s sake and out of honor to him, he yielded the first place to his nephew; when God rescued him from such great dangers; when God bade him go into Egypt, and when his wife was taken from him he did not complain; and many other things besides. And, as I said, even a man would have learned the man’s piety from these things, much less God, who does not wait to learn the outcome from events. How did he justify him without knowing? “For Abraham believed,” it says, “and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” What then is “Now I know”? The Syriac renders it, “Now you have made known,” that is, to men: “for I knew long ago, even before all those commands.” But why to men now? Were those earlier things not enough to show his goodwill toward God? They were enough; but this so far surpassed them that they seem nothing beside it. So it was to exalt this achievement, and show it higher than all, that he said these words. Many people too, when … surpass and outdo the former, are accustomed to speak so: when someone receives from another a gift greater than earlier ones, he often says, “Now I know that so-and-so loves me,” not meaning that he did not know it before, but wishing to show that what has now been given is greater than all. … the trophy then was an angel’s, not a man’s. Consider … God too, speaking in human fashion, says “I know,” wishing to show nothing other than the greatness of the contest, not that he then learned the fear, or the greatness of the fear. For when he says, [“Let us go down and see,” he does not say it] as one who needs to, for he fills all things and knows all things clearly, but to teach us not to pass judgment hastily. And when it says, “The Lord looked down from heaven,” it speaks of exact knowledge by a metaphor taken from men. So here too he says “Now I know,” showing that this was greater than all that went before. And he gives proof of this, adding, “You have not spared your beloved son for my sake.” He did not say “your son” only, but “your beloved son.” For he dared this against not nature only but also affection, which was great in him because of his own character and the virtue of the boy. If fathers would not easily give up even worthless sons, but mourn them too, when it is a son, and a true-born son, and an only son, and beloved, and Isaac, and he is to be slain by his father himself, who could tell the greatness of this wisdom? This contest is more splendid than countless diadems and boundless crowns. For on the man who wears that crown death often comes and does him violence, and before death countless plots from circumstances; but this diadem no one, not even after death, will be able to take away from the one who wears it, neither his own people nor strangers. And look, I pray you, at the most precious stone of this diadem. For as a precious stone binds a crown together, so he binds these words together at the end. What is this, “for my sake”? For the wonder is not that he did not spare him, but that he did so for God’s sake.

O blessed right hand, what a knife it was counted worthy of! O wonderful knife, what a right hand it was counted worthy of! O wonderful knife, for what purpose and in what place it served! How it was stained with blood, and how it was not! I do not even know what to say, so awesome was the mystery. It did not touch the boy’s neck, nor pass through the throat of that holy one, nor was it reddened with the blood of a righteous man; or rather, it both touched and passed through and was reddened and was dipped, and was not dipped. Perhaps I seem to you to be out of my mind, contradicting myself so. And indeed I am beside myself, considering the wonder of the righteous man; but I do not contradict myself. For the hand of the righteous man drove it into the boy’s throat; but the hand of God did not allow it, though driven in, to be defiled with the boy’s blood. For not Abraham alone held it, but God too; and the one pushed it on by his will, while God held it back by his voice. For the same voice both armed the right hand and disarmed it … everything was done at God’s nod, and everything served at his voice. Consider: he said, “Slay,” and at once the hand was armed; he said, “Do not slay,” and at once it was disarmed; for everything had been completed. And from then on God displayed the soldier and general to the world, the crowned victor to the theater of the angels, the priest, the king, crowned with the knife rather than with a diadem, the victor. For just as a general who has an excellent soldier might strike his adversary with dismay by the soldier’s skill at arms, his stance, and his strength, so too God, by the purpose, the posture, the stance alone of the righteous man, struck with dismay and put to flight the devil, the common enemy of us all. For I think that he too withdrew then, shuddering.

But if someone should say, “And why did he not let the right hand be dipped in blood, and then at once raise up the one who had been slain?” Because it was not lawful for God to receive such blood; such a table belongs to avenging demons. Here, however, both things were shown: the Master’s love for humankind and the servant’s fair-mindedness. Before, Abraham went out from his land; then he departed from nature itself. That is why he received his capital back with interest, and quite rightly; for he chose not to be called a father, so as to be shown a grateful servant. That is why he became not only a father but also a priest; and since he gave up his own for God’s sake, God bestowed on him his own as well, along with these things. When enemies [plot evil, God lets it go as far as the trial and then works wonders] …, as in the case of the furnace and of the lions; but when he himself gives the command, he stops the command at the willingness. For what, tell me, was still lacking to this feat? Did Abraham know the outcome beforehand? Was he trading on God’s love for humankind? For even though he was a prophet, a prophet does not know everything. So from then on the slaughter was superfluous and unworthy of God. And if he needed to learn that God is able to raise from the dead, he had learned this far more wonderfully from the womb; or rather, even before that proof, for he was a believer.

But do not only admire the righteous man; imitate him too. And seeing him, amid such great tumult and such a storm of waves, sailing as in calm weather, take the rudder of obedience and courage in hand yourself as well. Do not tell me only that he built the altar and laid the wood; but remember the boy’s voice too, and reckon how many snowstorms of armies came upon him, terrifying him, when the father heard the boy saying, “Where is the sheep?” Consider how many thoughts were stirred then, stabbing him on every side and cutting him through. For if even now many who are not fathers are broken down and would have wept, if they had not feared the outcome, and I see many weeping though they know the end, what must he probably have suffered, he who begot him, who nursed him, who had him in old age, who had only him, and such a son, who saw him, heard him, and was about to slay him at once? What understanding in the words! What gentleness in the question! Who then was at work—the devil—so as to set nature on fire? God forbid! It was God, so as to try the golden soul of the righteous man the more. For when Job’s wife speaks, the devil is at work, for such is her counsel; but this boy utters nothing blasphemous, but something very pious and thoughtful; much grace bloomed on the words, much honey dripped from the speech, flowing from a calm and gentle soul; and these words were enough to soften even a mind of stone. Yet they did not overturn that man of adamant, nor even shake him, nor did he say, “Why do you call ‘father’ one who a little later will not be your father, who has already lost this honor?” And why did the boy ask? Not out of mere curiosity or meddling, but in anxiety about what lay ahead. For he reflected that if his father had not wanted to take him as a partner in what was happening, he would not have left the servants to stay below and taken him alone. That is why, when they were alone, he asked him then, when no one could hear what was said. So great was the boy’s understanding! … Were you not all warmed, both men and women? Does not each of you embrace the child in his mind and kiss him, and admire his understanding, and revere the piety with which, though bound and laid on the wood, he was not terrified, did not struggle, did not condemn his father as mad, but was bound and lifted up and laid on, and bore everything in silence, like a lamb, or rather like the common Master of all? For he imitated his gentleness and kept his type: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer he is dumb.” And yet Isaac spoke; and his Master spoke too. How then was he dumb? That is, he said nothing self-willed or harsh, but all was gentle and mild, and his words showed his gentleness more than silence would have. For Christ also said, “If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike me?” and showed his gentleness more than if he had been silent. And as Isaac speaks to his father from the altar, so Christ speaks from the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” What then does the patriarch say? “God will provide for himself a sheep for a whole burnt offering, my child.” Each calls the other by the names of nature, the one “Father,” the other “child.” A hard war is stirred up on both sides, a great storm, and nowhere a shipwreck; for wisdom masters everything. Then, when the boy heard “God,” he said nothing more and did not inquire further; so understanding was the child, even in the very bloom of his youth.

Do you see over how many armies the king prevailed, how many wars that came against him? For the barbarians were not so fearful to the city of Jerusalem when they attacked it many times as these thoughts were, besieging him on every side; yet he overcame them all. Do you wish to see the priest too? The example is not far off. When you see him holding fire and a knife and standing at the altar, why still doubt his priesthood? And if you wish to see the sacrifice too, see that it is double. For he offered a son, he offered a sheep too, or rather, before all, his own will; and with the blood of the sheep he sanctified his right hand, and with the slaying of his son, his soul. So he was ordained priest, by the blood of an only-begotten son, by the sacrifice of a lamb. For the priests too were sanctified by the blood of the victims offered to God. Do you wish to see the prophet too? “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad,” it says. So you too become king and priest and prophet in the washing: king, when you have cast to the ground all wicked deeds and slain your sins; priest, when you have offered yourself to God, sacrificed your body, and been slain yourself too (“For if we have died with him,” he says, “we shall also live with him”); prophet, when you learn the things to come, become inspired, and are sealed. For as a seal is put on soldiers, so the Spirit is put on the faithful; and if you desert, you are plain to all. For the Jews had circumcision as a seal, but we the pledge of the Spirit. Knowing these things, then, and considering our own dignity, let us show a life worthy of the grace, that we may obtain the kingdom to come; 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.