Homilies on 2 Timothy

“[Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the] will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved child: grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” Why does he write a second letter to Timothy? He had said, “I hope to come to you soon”; this did not come about; so he consoles him by letter in place of his presence, since Timothy was perhaps distressed for this reason too, and because he had already taken up office at that time. For even if some men are great, when they take over the tiller and the steering of the church, they find it strange, plunged from many sides into many waves of affairs; and especially at that time, when the preaching was at its beginning, when everything was unploughed, when everything was hostile, when everything resisted. And not only this, but there were also heresies starting from Jewish teachers, as he indicated in the former letter too. And he does not only console him by letter, but also calls him to himself: “Do your best to come to me quickly,” he says; and, “When you come, bring the books, and above all the parchments.” This letter seems to me to have been written near the end; for “I am already,” he says, “being poured out as an offering”; and again, “At my first defence no one stood by me.” Setting all these things right, he also makes his exhortation from his own trials, and says: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.” At once, from the opening, he raised up his soul. Do not speak to me of the dangers here, he says: these procure for us eternal life, where there is nothing of the kind, where pain, grief, and sighing have fled away. For he did not make us apostles for this, he says, that we should only be in danger, but that we should even die, that we should suffer such things. For since recounting one's own evils was not only no consolation but even an addition to grief, he at once, from the beginning, gives his comfort, saying, “according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.” But if it is a promise, do not look for it here; “for hope that is seen is not hope.” “To Timothy, my beloved child.” Not simply “child,” but “beloved.” For it is possible to be children and yet not be loved; but you are not such, he says, nor do I call you simply a child, but a beloved child. For he calls the Galatians children too, but all the same he is grieved over them, saying, “My little children, for whom I am again in labour.” And above all he testifies to great virtue in him by calling him beloved. How? When love does not come from nature, it comes from virtue. Those born of us, at any rate, are beloved to us not only for their virtue but also by the necessity of nature; but those who are ours according to faith, when they are beloved, are so for nothing else but virtue; for from where else? And especially with Paul, who did nothing out of partiality. Besides, by saying “beloved child” he shows that it was not because he was angry with him, or despised him, or had condemned him, that he did not come. “Grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” What he prayed for him before, he prays for him now as well. And see how at once in the opening he makes his defence to him that he did not come to him nor see him. For the words “Until I come” and “I hope to come to you soon” made him expect a speedy arrival. To this, then, he makes his defence at once. He does not at once give the reason why he did not come, so as not to grieve him greatly; this was that he was being detained by Caesar; but when he called him to himself, near the end, then he disclosed it. He does not throw him into grief right from the opening, but holds out hopes of seeing him: “I long to see you,” and “Do your best to come to me quickly.” At once, then, from the opening he raises him up, and says what follows with praise. “I thank God, whom I serve from my forebears with a clean conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, remembering your tears, that I may be filled with joy.” I thank God that I remember you, he says; so much do I love you. This belongs to surpassing love, when someone even prides himself on the friendship because he loves greatly. “I thank God,” he says, “whom I serve.” How? “With a clean conscience, from my forebears”: that is, his conscience had not been harmed. Or rather, here he speaks of his life, and everywhere he calls one's life “conscience.” Or: that I never betrayed, for a human motive, any of the good things I was eager for, not even when I was persecuting. That is why he says, “But I received mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief,” as good as saying: do not suspect the thing was wickedness. He rightly commends his own character, so that what he says about his love may be shown to be trustworthy. What he means is this: I tell no lie, and I do not hold one thing and say another. So too on that occasion, under compulsion, he praised himself, as the book of Acts somewhere shows. For since they were slandering him as a rebel and an innovator, he said for this reason: “And Ananias said to me, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, and to see the Righteous One and hear a voice from his mouth, for you will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard.’” So here too, so as not to get the reputation of being unloving and unfeeling, as if he had forgotten, he rightly praises himself, saying, “as I remember you constantly,” and not simply that, but “in my prayers.” That is, it is the business of my prayer; I go on doing this all the time without a break. For this is what he indicates by saying, “night and day I called upon God for this, longing to see you.” Do you see a burning longing? Do you see the madness of love? Do you see humility, how he makes his defence to the disciple? Then he shows that it is not without reason or idly. He has shown it already, but he shows it here too, for he says, “remembering your tears.” It is likely that Timothy, when he was torn away, wept and lamented more than a child … “That I may be filled with joy,” he says, I long to see you. I would not, then, have deprived myself of so great a pleasure, even if I were utterly insensible, cruel and savage; for those tears, coming to mind, were enough to bend me. But as it is, I am not one of such people, but of those who serve God with a clean conscience. So many necessities were drawing me to you. So then, Timothy wept. And he gives another reason, which is at the same time an encouragement: “[Being reminded of your sincere] faith …”

[“Being reminded of the sincere faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother] Lois and in your mother Eunice.” [Here is] another commendation, that he was not from the Gentiles, nor from unbelievers, but from of old from a household that served Christ … “For he was,” it says, “the son of a believing Jewish woman.” How Jewish? How believing? Not from the Gentiles. “But because of his father,” since he was a Greek, “and because of the Jews who were in those places, he took him and circumcised him.” Do you see how the law was beginning to be dissolved, as these intermarriages took place? And see how many things he has set down to assure him that he had not despised him. I serve God, he says; I have a true conscience; and you have your tears. Not only because of your tears do I long to see you, but also because of your faith, because you are a worker of the truth, because there is nothing deceitful in you. When, then, you show yourself worthy of being loved, being so affectionate and so genuine a disciple of Christ, and I too am not one of the unaffectionate but of those eager to speak the truth, what was there to prevent my coming? “And I am persuaded that it is in you too.” You have this good thing from of old, he says; you received the sincere faith by inheritance from your forebears. For the praises of forebears are ours too when we share in them; but when we do not, they avail nothing, and rather condemn us. That is why he added, “And I am persuaded that it is in you too.” I am not guessing, he says, but I am persuaded and fully assured. If, then, you came to this for no human reason, nothing will be able to shake you. “For this reason [I remind you to rekindle the gift] of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” See how he shows that Timothy was in great discouragement and dejection. For he as good as says this: Do not think that I despised you; but know that I have neither condemned you nor forgotten you; and if you think of no one else, think of your grandmother and your mother. Therefore, since I know that you have a sincere faith, I remind you; for you need eagerness to rekindle the gift of God. As fire needs wood, so grace needs our eagerness, to keep the gift of God aflame, “which is in you through the laying on of my hands”: that is, the grace of the Spirit, which you received for the leadership of the church, for signs, for the whole of the service. For it is in our power both to quench and to kindle it; that is why elsewhere he says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” By sloth and carelessness it is quenched, but by sobriety and attention it is roused. It is in you, but work it more vigorously, that is, with boldness. “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and love and self-discipline.” That is, it was not for this that we received the Spirit … For he does give a spirit of cowardice, as happened in the wars in the books of Kingdoms: “And a spirit of cowardice fell upon them,” it says; that is, he put fear in them. But to you he gave the opposite, a spirit of power and of love for him. So this too comes from grace, but not simply from grace, but when we first show what comes from ourselves. For that which makes us cry, “Abba, Father,” also instils love, both for him and for our neighbour, “that we may love one another,” he says; for love comes from power and from not being cowardly. Nothing is so apt to break up friendship as cowardice and a reputation for betrayal. “For God did not give us,” he says, “a spirit of cowardice, but of love and power and self-discipline.” By “self-discipline” he means either the health of the mind and soul, or “self-discipline” so that we may be disciplined: even if something terrible happens, it is so that it may discipline us and cut away what is superfluous. Let us not, then, be pained at the terrible things that befall us: this is discipline. “Do not be hasty,” it says, “in a time of calamity.” Many have many painful things at home, and we share the grief with one another, but no longer the cause: one has it from a wife, another from a child, another from a servant, another from a friend, another from an enemy, another from a neighbour, another from a loss; many and various are the causes of grief; and in a word, one cannot find anyone free of grief and discouragement, but one has small causes of pain, another greater. Let us not, then, be vexed, nor think that we alone are in grief. 3. For a human being living this perishable life cannot be without grief: if not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, afterwards, the painful thing comes. For as no one can sail without anxiety—sail, I mean, on a great open sea—so no one living this life can be free from discouragement, even if you name a rich man; for because he is rich, he has many occasions for desires; even if you name the emperor himself; for he too is held in check by many, and does not do everything as he judges, but grants many things against his own opinion, and he more than anyone is the man who does everything he does not wish. Why? Because he has many who wish to receive from what is his. Consider how discouraged he is when he wishes to do something and cannot, whether from fear, or from suspicion, or because of enemies, or because of friends. And often, even when he insists on doing something he has decided, he loses all the pleasure of the deed, since many are hostile to him. But what? Do you think that those who live a life free of public affairs are free of grief in life? It is not so. For as one cannot be immortal while being human, so neither can one be without grief. How many troubles must they be enduring, which cannot be set out in words but which only they can know by experience? How many have prayed ten thousand times to die amid that wealth and luxury? For luxury does not by any means put one outside grief; rather, luxury itself begets countless griefs, diseases, disgusts, and, apart from these, often with no cause underlying them. For when the soul is settled in such a condition, it knows how to be pained without any reason. Indeed, the physicians say that untimely griefs arise even from a weak constitution of the stomach. Or does this not happen to us too, when we are pained and do not know the cause of the grief? In a word, one cannot find anyone without grief; and even if others do not have as much occasion for grief as we do, each nevertheless thinks he has; for his own grief pains him more than another's. For as those who suffer in parts of their bodies think their neighbours better off in their pains, and he who has a disease of the eye thinks no other affliction like his own, while again he who has a disease of the stomach says this is the hardest of all, and each thinks the one by which he is held the most distressing of all; so also with discouragement, each says that the grief by which he is held is the more painful, for he judges by his own experience. For example, he who has no children thinks nothing so terrible as childlessness; he who has many, along with poverty, blames nothing so much as a large family; he who has one thinks nothing worse than having one: for from this, he says, comes indulgence too, and the child brings his father into grief, always being doted on by him and accepting no correction. He who has a beautiful wife says nothing is worse than having a beautiful wife, for the thing is full of suspicion and plotting; he who has an ugly one says nothing is worse than having an ill-favoured wife, for the thing is full of distaste. The private man says nothing is more useless or meaner than his kind of life; the soldier says nothing is more miserable or more dangerous than soldiering: better to live on bread alone and water than bear such burdens. The one in office says nothing is more toilsome than tending to other people's needs; the one under rule says nothing is more slavish than being subject to another's authority. The married man says nothing is worse than a wife … [the unmarried man says nothing is worse] than not marrying, and being deprived of a home and of rest. The merchant calls the farmer blessed for his security, the farmer the merchant for his wealth. In a word, the human race is somehow hard to please, querulous and heavy-hearted. When someone condemns all people, then he says, “Man is nothing,” and people call the whole of nature a toilsome and wretched creature. How many admire old age? How many call youth blessed? So in the ages of life too there is much discouragement. When we see ourselves faulted because of our age, we say, “Why were we not old men?” When the head turns white, again: “Where is youth?” In a word, we have countless occasions for grief. There is one way alone free of this unevenness: the way of virtue. Or rather, it too has grief, but grief that is not unprofitable but brings gain and benefit. For either someone has sinned, and, pricked to the heart through grief, has washed away his sins; or he has shared the pain of a fallen brother, and here again he has no small good; for sharing the pain of those in misfortune gives us great boldness before God. 4. Hear how much wisdom the divine Scripture teaches about Job; hear also what Paul says: “Weep with those who weep”; and again, “associating with the lowly.” For fellowship with those who grieve usually takes away the heaviest part of the grief. As with a load, if someone shares some of the weight, he relieves the one who carries the burden alone, so it is with everything else. But now, when one of our relatives has died, many sit beside us, many console us; and we often raise up a donkey that has fallen; but as for the souls of our brothers that are falling … if we see him going indecently into a tavern … even if he is drunk, we do not stop him; even if he is doing anything else improper, we let him; but rather we even join in. That is why Paul said, “Not only do they do them, but they also approve of those who practise them.” And the many form clubs for drinking and drunkenness. Form clubs, man, so as to put away the madness of drunkenness; these are good acts of friendship for those in bonds, for those in affliction. Paul too enjoined something of this kind on the Corinthians, “so that there may be no …”; but now we do everything for the sake of luxury and self-indulgence, and we make a common couch, a common table, common wine and a common expense, but no one has made almsgiving common. Such were the acts of friendship in the time of the apostles: they laid down all their possessions for the common share. But I do not command all, only some part. “Whatever anyone prospers in,” he says, “let each set it aside on the first day of the week,” as though paying a tax for the seven days, and lay it up, and so give alms, whether small or great. “For you shall not appear empty,” it says, “before the Lord.” If this was said to Jews, how much more to us? That is why the poor stand before the doors, so that no one may go in empty, so that each may go in with almsgiving. You are going in to receive mercy: show mercy first. The one who comes later owes more; for when we begin, the second puts down more. Make God your debtor, and then ask him; lend, and then ask for repayment, so that you may receive it with interest. God wishes this; he does not avoid it. If you ask with almsgiving, he is grateful; if with alms[giving …] Yes, I beg you. Being heard does not lie in the stretching out of the hands. Stretch out your hands, not to heaven, but into the hands of the poor. If you stretch out your hand into the hands of the poor, you have touched the very summit of heaven; for he who sits there …; but if you stretch them up [empty], you have gained nothing. Tell me, if the emperor came to you in his purple and asked, would you not eagerly have given everything you have? But now, when you are asked not by an earthly king but by the heavenly one, through the poor, do you stand there overlooking him and putting off the gift? And of what punishment would you not be worthy? For being heard lies not in stretching out the hands, nor in a multitude of words, but in works. Hear the prophet saying, “When you stretch out your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you; and if you multiply your petition, I will not listen to you.” For the one who needs mercy ought to be silent and not even look up to heaven; it is the one who has boldness who also speaks much. But what does it say? “Judge for the orphan and the lowly, and give the widow justice, and learn to do good.” So shall we be able to be heard, even if we keep our hands down, even if we do not speak or ask. Let us then strive for these things, that we may obtain the good things promised to us.

“So do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before eternal times, but has now been made manifest through the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Nothing is worse than when someone judges and measures divine matters by human reasonings; for so he will fall from that rock, far below the measure, and will be deprived of the light. For if one who wishes to grasp the rays of the sun with human eyes not only will not grasp them, nor keep hold of what is before him, but will even fall back and suffer endless harm, much more will one who wishes to gaze intently at that light through his own reasonings suffer this; and he insults the gift of God. Look, at any rate, at Marcion and Mani and Valentinus, and all who brought the other heresies and destructive doctrines into the church of God: how, measuring the things of God by human reasonings, they were ashamed of the dispensation. And yet these things would be worthy not of shame but of great boasting—I mean the cross of Christ. For nothing is so great a proof of his love for humankind—not heaven, not sea, not earth, not his bringing all things from non-being into being, not all the rest—as the cross. That is why Paul too boasts in it, saying, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” But the unspiritual, who attribute nothing more to God than to human beings, fall away and are ashamed. That is why from the start he exhorts the disciple, and through him everyone, saying, “So do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.” That is, do not be ashamed that you preach the Crucified, but even take pride in it. For in themselves death and prisons and bonds are worthy of shame and reproach; but if one adds the cause and sees the mystery rightly, he will find both full of great boasting and great dignity. For that death saved the perishing world; that death joined heaven to earth; that death destroyed the tyranny of the devil, and made human beings angels and sons of God; that death led our nature up to the royal throne; these bonds turned many to God. “So do not be ashamed,” he says, “of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner”: even if you suffer these things yourself, do not be ashamed. That he hinted at this is clear both from what was said above, when he said, “God gave us a spirit of power and love and self-discipline,” and again from what follows. “But share in suffering,” he says; that is, not simply do not be ashamed, but do not be ashamed when you meet it in experience. And he did not say, “Do not fear, do not be afraid,” but rather, to encourage him, he says, “Do not be ashamed,” as though there were no longer any danger if one rose above the shame. For shame has only this burdensome thing in it: being overcome by it. Do not, then, be ashamed if I, who raise the dead, who work countless signs, who have run round the world, am now in bonds; for I am not a prisoner as an evildoer, but for the sake of the Crucified. If my Master was not ashamed of a cross, neither am I of bonds. And besides, in urging him not to be ashamed, he first reminded him of the cross. If you are not ashamed of the cross, he says, do not be ashamed of bonds either; if our Master and teacher endured a cross, much more should we endure bonds. For whoever is ashamed of what Christ himself endured is ashamed of the Crucified too. For it is not on my own account, he says, that I bear these bonds. Do not, then, feel anything merely human, but share in the same things. “But share in suffering,” he says, “for the gospel”: not as though the gospel were suffering, but rousing the disciple to suffer for the gospel. “According to the power of God,” he says, “who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before eternal times.” Besides, since it was burdensome to say, “Suffer,” he again consoles him, saying, “not according to our works”; that is, do not count on your own power to bear these things, but on God's; for yours it is to choose and to be eager, but God's to lighten them and bring them to an end. Then he shows also the proofs of his power: consider how you were saved, how you were called; as he says elsewhere, “according to his working, which works in us.” So this was a greater power than making heaven: persuading the world. How then was he called, he says, “with a holy calling”? That is, he made those who were sinners and enemies holy; and this is not from us, it is the gift of God. If, then, he is both powerful, in that he called, and good, in that he did this by grace and not as a debt, we need not be afraid. For he who, when we needed to be saved, saved us by grace even when we were enemies, will he not much more work with us when he sees us also at work? “Not according to our works,” he says, “but according to his own purpose.” That is, with no one compelling him, no one advising him, but of his own purpose, moved from within, from his own goodness, he saved us; for this is what “according to his own purpose” means. “And the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before eternal [times]” … that these things should come about in Christ Jesus. This too is no small thing, that he willed it from of old; it was not, then, from a change of mind. How then is the Son not eternal? For he too willed these things from the beginning. “But has now been made manifest through the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel.”

Have you seen power? Have you seen a gift that came about not through works but through the gospel? For these things belong to hope: in his own body both of them have come about, but in ours they will be. How? Through the gospel. “For which I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.” Why does he say this so continually, calling himself teacher of the Gentiles? Because he wishes to persuade them, as I said, that they must associate with the Gentiles too. Do not, then, lose heart at my sufferings: the sinews of death have been cut. I do not endure these things as an evildoer, but because of my teaching of the Gentiles. At the same time he also makes his word trustworthy. “For this reason,” he says, “I also suffer these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able [to guard] my deposit until that day.” “But I am not ashamed,” he says. Are bonds, tell me, a matter of shame? Are sufferings a matter of shame? Do not, then, be ashamed. Do you see how he displays his teaching through his deeds? I suffer these things, he says: I have been thrown into prison, I am driven about. “For I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard my deposit until that day.” What is the deposit? The faith, the preaching. He who entrusted it, he says, will himself keep it intact. I suffer everything so that the treasure may not be plundered; I am not ashamed of these things, so long as it is kept intact. Or he calls the believers the deposit, which God entrusted to him, or which he entrusted to God. “And now,” he says, “behold, I commend you to the Lord.” That is, these things will not be without profit to me; and Timothy shows me the fruit of the deposit. Do you see that he does not even feel his evils because of his hope for the disciples? Such must the teacher be; so must he care for his disciples, and count them everything. “For now we live,” he says, “if you stand firm in the Lord”; and again, “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting? Is it not you also, before our Lord Jesus Christ?” Do you see him anxious over these things, the disciples' affairs no less than his own? For teachers must surpass natural fathers; they must be warmer. But it is fitting for the children too to be affectionately disposed toward them. “Obey your leaders,” he says, “and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give account.” Tell me, he is answerable to so great a danger, and you will not even obey him, and that for your own good? For even if he manages his own affairs well, so long as yours are not in good order he is in anguish, and he gives a double account. Consider what it is to be examined over each one of those under one's rule, and to be anxious. What honour will you set, what service, to balance these dangers? You will say that nothing is equal; for you have never yet given your soul, but he lays down his soul for you. And even if he does not lay it down here, when the occasion calls, he loses it there; and you will not submit even so far as a word. This is the cause of all evils, that the authority of those who rule has vanished: there is no reverence, no fear. “Obey your leaders,” he says, “and submit”; but now everything has been overturned and thrown into confusion. I do not say these things for the leaders' sake: for what will they gain from our honour, except so far as they will have obedient people? But I say them for your good. For they, even if they are honoured, gain nothing for the future, but their condemnation is greater; and if they are insulted, they are not harmed for the future, but their defence is even greater. But it is for your own sake that I want all this to happen. (For when leaders are honoured by those under them, this too is brought up against them, as was said to Eli, “I took you from your father's house”; but when they are insulted, as in the case of Samuel, “It is not you,” he says, “that they have despised, but me.” So insult is gain to them, but honour a burden. So I say these things not for their sake but for your own. He who honours the priest will honour God too; but he who has learned to despise the priest will go on step by step and one day insult God too. “He who receives you,” he says, “receives me”; and, “Hold his priests in honour,” it says. From this the Jews learned to despise God: they despised Moses, they wanted to stone him. For when someone is reverently disposed toward the priest, he is much more so toward God. Even if the priest is bad, God, seeing that out of honour for him you serve even one unworthy of honour, will himself give you the reward. For if “he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward,” so too, clearly, will he who honours and yields to and obeys the priest. For if, where it is a matter of hospitality, where you do not know the man you lodge, you receive so great a reward, much more if you submit to the one to whom he even commands you to submit.) “On the seat of Moses,” he says, “the scribes and the Pharisees have sat; so do whatever they tell you to do; but do not act according to their works.” Do you not know what the priest is? He is an angel of the Lord. Does he speak his own words? If you despise him, you despise not him but God, who ordained him. “And how is it clear,” someone says, “that God ordained him?” Well, if you do not hold this conviction, your hope is empty. For if God works nothing through him, you have no bath of baptism, you do not share in the mysteries, you do not enjoy the blessings; you do not …

“What then?” someone says. “Does God ordain everyone, even the unworthy?” God does not ordain everyone, but he works through everyone, even if they themselves are unworthy, so that the people may be saved. For if he spoke through a donkey, and through Balaam, a defiled man, for the people's sake, much more through the priest. For what does God not do for the sake of our salvation? What does he not utter? Through whom does he not work? If he worked through Judas, and through those who prophesied, to whom he says, “I do not know you; depart from me, you who work lawlessness,” and others cast out demons, much more will he work through the priests. For if we were to examine the lives of those who rule, we ourselves would become the ones who ordain our teachers, and everything is turned upside down: the feet above and the head below. Hear Paul saying, “But to me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human day”; and again, “Why do you judge your brother?” If one must not judge a brother, much less the teacher. If God had commanded this, you would do well, and you would sin by not doing it; but if he commanded the opposite, do not dare, and do not venture beyond the lines marked out. Korah and Dathan and Abiram rose up against Aaron after the making of the calf. What then? Did they not perish? Let each care for his own affairs. If he holds a perverted doctrine, even if he is an angel, do not obey; but if he teaches what is right, pay no attention to his life, but to his words. You have Paul to shape you to what you ought to do, by deeds as well as by words. “But he does not give to the poor,” someone says, “nor does he manage well.” How do you know this? Before you have learned, do not find fault; fear the account you must give. Many things are judged from suspicion. Imitate your Master; hear him saying, “I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against them; and if not, that I may know.” But if you have found out and examined and seen, wait for the judge; do not usurp Christ's office: it is his to examine these things, not yours; you are the lowest servant, not a master; you are a sheep. Do not, then, busy yourself about the shepherd, lest you have to give account even for the things you accuse him of. “And how can he tell me,” someone says, “when he does not do it himself?” It is not he who tells you; if you obey him, you have no reward; it is Christ who urges these things on you. And why do I say this? One must not obey even Paul if he says anything of his own, anything human, but only the apostle who has Christ speaking in himself. Let us not judge one another's affairs, but each his own; examine your own life. “But he ought to be better than I am,” someone says. Why? “Because he is a priest.” And what does he have more than you? Not the labours? Not the dangers? Not the anguish? Not the hardship? Since he has these, then, how is he not better than you? But if he is not better, ought you, tell me, to destroy yourself? These words come from madness. For how do you know that he is not better than you? “If he steals,” he says, “and robs what is holy.” How do you know, man? Why do you throw yourself over a precipice? If someone tells you that so-and-so has taken the purple, even if you know it, you stop your ears; even if you could prove it, you leap away at once and pretend not to know, not wanting to take on a needless danger; but here you not only do not leap away, you even take on the needless danger. These words are not free of accountability; hear Christ saying, “I tell you that for every idle word people speak, they will give account of it on the day of judgment.” And in general, do you think you are better than someone, and do you not groan, nor beat your breast, nor bow down, nor imitate the tax collector? Then you have destroyed yourself, even if you are better. Are you better? Be silent, so that you may remain better; but if you say it, you have emptied it all. If you think so, …; if you do not think so, you have added much. For if he who was a sinner went down justified because he confessed it, what will he not gain who is not much of a sinner and is so persuaded? Examine your own life. You do not steal? But you seize, you use force, you do countless other such things. I do not say this in praise of theft—far from it—but weeping bitterly, if indeed anyone is such; for I do not believe it. How great an evil sacrilege is cannot even be told; but I spare you, for I do not want our virtue to be emptied by accusing others. What was worse than the tax collector, tell me? It was true that he was a tax collector and liable for countless evils; and merely because the Pharisee said, “I am not like this tax collector,” he lost everything. And do you say about the priest, “I am not like this sacrilegious man,” and not empty everything? I am compelled to say these things and to pursue this subject … Let us not speak ill of our teachers, I beg you, nor scrutinize them closely, lest we put ourselves in a bad state; let us examine our own affairs, and we shall speak ill of no one. Let us reverence that day on which he enlightened us. If someone has a father, even if the father has countless faults, he covers them all: “Do not glorify yourself,” it says, “in your father's dishonour, for it is no glory to you, but a reproach; and even if his understanding fails, be forbearing.” And if this is to be said of fathers in the body, much more of spiritual fathers. Respect him because day by day he ministers to you: he has the Scriptures read, for you he adorns the house, for you he keeps vigil, for you he prays, on your behalf he stands entreating God, for you he makes supplications; for you is his whole service of worship. Respect these things, consider these things, with all reverence. Is he bad, tell me? And what of that? Does the one who is not bad give you the great good things himself? By no means: everything is effected according to your faith. Neither will the righteous man help you at all if you are not faithful, nor will the bad one harm you at all if you are faithful. God worked through oxen in the case of the ark, when he wished to save the people. Does the priest's life, does his virtue, contribute so much? The things God bestows are not such as to be accomplished by priestly virtue: the whole is of grace; his part is only to open his mouth, and God works the whole; he only fulfils the sign. Consider how great the distance is between John and Jesus; hear John saying, “I need to be baptized by you,” and, “I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.” But nevertheless, though the distance was so great, the Spirit came down, which John did not have; for “from his fullness,” it says, “we have all received.” Yet it did not come down before he was baptized; nor did John cause it to come down. Why, then, does this happen? So that you may learn that the priest fulfils the sign. No human being stands so far from another as John from Jesus; but nevertheless the Spirit came down in his case, so that you may learn that God works everything, that God does everything. [It is not that] I care so much about them, but because I fear for you, lest you empty your virtue through this boasting, through this condemnation. For hear Paul exhorting and saying, “But let each test his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in himself alone, and not in his neighbour.”

Tell me, if you go to a doctor's surgery with a wound, do you, instead of letting him put on a remedy and treat the sore, busy yourself about the doctor, whether he has a sore or not? And if he does have one, do you worry about it? Or, because he has one, do you not treat your own, and say, “Being a doctor, he ought to [be healthy]; since, though a doctor, he is not healthy, I too will leave my own sore uncured”? For if the priest is bad, will that be any comfort to the one under him? By no means: he will pay the appointed penalty, and you will pay the one that is due and fitting. For in any case the teacher only fills a place. “For they shall all be taught by God,” it says, “and they shall not say, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” Why, then, someone says, does he preside? Why, then, is he set over us? … [I wish to say something surprising, but do not wonder] or be disturbed. What is this? The offering is the same, whether an ordinary man offers it, or Paul, or Peter; it is the same which Christ gave to the disciples and which the priests now perform; this one is in no way less than that, because it is not human beings who sanctify this one either, but he who sanctified that one too. For as the words which God spoke are the same as those the priest says now, so the offering too is the same, and so is the baptism which he gave. Thus the whole is a matter of faith. At once the Spirit leapt upon Cornelius, since he had first shown what came from himself and had brought his faith. So this is the body, and that was too; and whoever thinks that this is less than that does not know that Christ is present now too, and is at work now too. Knowing these things, then (for all this has not been said to us idly, but so that we might correct your judgment and make you more secure for the future), let us keep careful guard over what has been said … for if we are always listening but never acting, what is said will be of no benefit to us. Let us, then, pay close attention; let us attend carefully to what has been said; let us write it on our minds; let us keep it always engraved on our conscience; and let us continually send up glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

“Hold the pattern of the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus; guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. You know this, that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and [Hermogenes]. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome he searched for me very diligently and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day. And what services he rendered in Ephesus, you know very well.” Not only by letters did he set before the disciple what he must do, but already by spoken words as well. He made this plain in many places, in other letters too, saying, “whether by word or by letter, as from us”; and much more here. Let us not, then, think that what concerns the teaching has been stated incompletely; for he handed down many things to him unwritten as well; and it was to remind him of these that he said, “Hold the pattern of the sound words that you heard from me.” What does he mean? As painters do, he says, I have impressed on you an image of virtue and of everything that pleases God, laying down in your soul, as it were, a rule, an archetype and boundaries. Keep these, then; whether you need to decide anything about faith, or about love, or about self-discipline, take your examples from there; you will not need to look for a model from others, since everything is laid up there. “Guard the good deposit.” How? “Through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” For it is not within the reach of a human soul or human power, when entrusted with so much, to be equal to guarding it. Why? Because the robbers are many; the darkness is deep; the devil is still at hand and lies in wait; we do not know at what hour, at what moment, he attacks. How then shall we be equal to guarding it, he says? “Through the Holy Spirit”: that is, if we have the Spirit with us; if we do not drive the grace away, it will be present. “For unless the Lord builds a house, those who build it labour in vain; unless the Lord guards a city, those who guard it stay awake in vain.” This is our wall, this our fortress, this our refuge. If, then, it dwells in us and itself guards, what need is there of a command? So that we may hold it fast, he says, so that we may keep it, and not drive it away by bad deeds. Then he recounts his trials, not wishing to cast the disciple down but to raise him up, so that if ever he too should fall into them, he might not find it strange, looking to his teacher and remembering all that happened to him. What, then, does he say? Since it was likely that, once he was arrested, he would be abandoned and enjoy no kindness, no support, no help, but would be betrayed even by the faithful and by his friends, hear what he says: “You know this, that all who are in Asia turned away from me.” There were likely many in Rome at that time from the parts of Asia; but no one stood by me, he says, no one acknowledged me, all were estranged. And see his philosophic soul. He told only what happened; he did not curse them; the one who did the opposite he even praised, and he prays countless good things for him; but those he did not curse. What does he say? “Among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy,” he says, “to the household of Onesiphorus, for he refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome he searched for me very diligently and found me.” See how everywhere he speaks of the shame, not of the danger, so that Timothy might not be afraid, although the matter was full of dangers; for at that time Paul had given offence to Nero by winning over one of those attached to him. But when he was in Rome, he says, he not only did not avoid meeting me, but even sought me out and found me. “May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day. And what services he rendered in Ephesus, you know better than I.” Such must the faithful be: not held back by fear or threat or shame, but working together with one another, standing by and helping, as in war. For they do not so much do a favour to those in danger as to themselves, making themselves sharers, through what they do for them, in the crowns owed to them. For example, one of those dedicated to God is in affliction, suffering many terrible things and contending with great endurance; you have not yet been drawn into this contest; it is open to you, if you wish, even without going down into the arena, to become a sharer in the crowns laid up for him, by being present with him, anointing him, urging him on, rousing him. And that this is so, hear what he says, writing elsewhere: “Yet you did well to share in my affliction”; and again, “For even in Thessalonica you sent once and again for my need.” And how did those who were absent share in the affliction of one who was not with them? How? Because you sent me, he says, what I needed, once and again. And again, speaking of Epaphroditus, he says, “Because he came near to death, risking his life, to make up for what was lacking in your service to me.” For as with kings not only those who fight but also those who guard the baggage share in the honour, and not merely that, but often obtain equal rewards, though they have not bloodied their hands nor taken up arms, nor even seen the enemy's battle line at all, much more is it so in these afflictions. For whoever helps the athlete when he is wasting away with hunger, whoever is present, whoever encourages him with words, whoever provides all other care, has an equal share with the one who contends.

For do not think, I pray you, of Paul the athlete, the invincible and unconquerable, but of some other one of the many, who, if he had not received much consolation and much encouragement, might not have stood his ground, might not have contended. So those who are outside the contests, by caring for the one who has entered them, have become causes of the victory, and would become sharers in the crowns laid up for the victory. And what wonder is it if one who shares with those who are still living is counted worthy of the same things as those who contend? Just as with those who have departed, those already laid to rest, those crowned, those who need nothing, it is possible to share even after death. For hear Paul saying, “sharing in the commemorations of the saints.” “And how,” someone says, “is it possible to share?” When you admire the man, when you do any of the things for which he was crowned, you share in his prizes and his crowns, clearly. “May the Lord grant him,” he says, “to find mercy from the Lord on that day.” He showed me mercy, he says; so he will have the recompense on that fearful and awesome day, when we have need of much mercy. “May the Lord grant him,” he says, “to find mercy from the Lord.” Two Lords? By no means; but “for us there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,” and one God. Here those who are sick with the doctrines of Marcion pounce on the saying; but let them learn that this is the custom of Scripture, and one can find Scripture using this manner of speaking in many places, as when it says, “The Lord said to my Lord”; and again, “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord’”; and elsewhere, “The Lord rained from the Lord.” This indicates persons of the same substance; it does not divide the nature. For it says this not so that we may think of two substances differing from one another, but of two persons, each of the same substance. See how he said, “May the Lord grant him.” What? Nothing else than mercy. For since he himself had received mercy from Onesiphorus, he prays that Onesiphorus too may receive it from God. And if Onesiphorus, who exposed himself to dangers, is saved by mercy, much more are we. For the accounting is fearful, fearful, and needs great love for humankind, so that we may not hear that awesome word, “Go away, I do not know you, you who work lawlessness”; so that we may not hear again that fearful word, “Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”; so that we may not hear, “There is a chasm between us and you”; so that we may not hear that word full of horror, “Take him and throw him into the outer darkness”; so that we may not hear that word full of great fear, “You wicked and lazy servant.” For that court is very awesome and fearful; and yet God is gentle, and yet he is kind. For he is called the God of compassion and the God of comfort, and good as no one is good, and kind and gentle and rich in mercy, and he does not desire the death of the sinner so much as that he should turn and live. Why, then, why is that day so full of anguish? A river of fire is drawn before his face, books of our deeds are opened, that day is like a furnace … many … How, then, is he loving to humankind? How merciful? How good? He is loving even so, and it is from these things above all that the greatness of his love is shown. For this is why he holds such great fear over us: so that, pushed by these things at least, we may one day be roused to longing for the kingdom. See, I pray you, how he does not simply bear witness for Onesiphorus, but says, “He often refreshed me.” Like an athlete oppressed by drought—that is, by afflictions—he revived me, he says, and strengthened me. “And what services he rendered in Ephesus, you know better than I.” Not only in Ephesus, he says, but here too. Such must the sober and wakeful man be: working not once, nor twice, nor three times, but throughout his whole life. For as our body, once fed, does not have its sustenance for its whole life, but needs daily food as well, so here too, in godliness, we need every day the help that comes from works. For we have need of much mercy; for it is because of our sins that God, who loves humankind, does all those things, needing none of them himself, but doing everything for our sake. That is why he has told and recounted everything to us; and not only recounted it, but confirms it by deeds. He was trustworthy even from words alone; but so that no one might think the words were exaggeration or mere threat, he adds the assurance that comes from deeds as well. How? By bringing punishments both on individuals and on whole peoples. And so that you may learn it from the facts themselves, at one time he punished Pharaoh, at another he brought the flood of waters and that total destruction, at another the destruction by fire. And now too we see many of the wicked punished and paying a penalty; these are examples of hell. So that we may not sleep, nor be careless, nor forget the words, he reminds us and rouses us by deeds, showing us here tribunals, law courts, accountings. Then, among human beings there is so much concern for justice, but with God, who even laid down these laws, is there no account taken of them? And how could that be believed? For in the house, in the marketplace, everywhere one can see law courts. In the house the master judges his slaves every day and demands an account of their faults, punishing some and letting others go. In the fields again the farmer and his wife go to law every day; on ships the helmsman judges; in camps the general judges the soldiers; and one could find many law courts: in the crafts, the master judges the apprentice. So both privately and publicly all judge one another, and nowhere would one see the claim of justice neglected, but everyone everywhere giving account. Then, here the inquiry into justice is so widely spread, through city and household and each individual; but there, where “the right hand of God is full of righteousness,” and “his righteousness is like the mountains of God,” is there no account of justice there? And how does God, “the judge, righteous and strong and patient,” bear with it and not exact the penalties? Here you have the reason: he is patient, it says, and he is patient so as to draw you to repentance; but if you persist, “by your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself.” If, then, he is righteous, he repays according to desert, and does not overlook those who suffer wrong and leave it unavenged; for this is what the righteous do. If he is strong, he repays even after death, and at the resurrection; for this is what the strong do. If, being patient, he bears with it, let us not be disturbed nor say, “Why does he not punish here?” For if this happened, the human race would have been carried off beforehand, if he exacted from us every day the penalty for our offences. For there is not, there is not a day pure of sins; we stumble in something either great or small. So none of us would even have reached his twentieth year, if his patience and goodness were not great, granting us a long term for repentance so that we may strip off our offences. Let each one, then, go over what he has done with an upright conscience, and, bringing his whole life out into the open, consider whether he is not worthy of countless punishments and chastisements; and when he is indignant that so-and-so, who does countless wicked things, does not pay a penalty, let him think of his own deeds, and he will stop being indignant. For those things seem great because they are done in great and conspicuous matters; but if he examines his own, he will perhaps find more. For seizing and grasping are alike, whether they concern gold or silver; both spring from the same mind, and he who has filched something small will not refuse to filch something great; and if it is not at hand, that is not because of him but because of how things fell out. The poor man who wrongs one poorer than himself would not, if he could, have spared the rich man either; the matter now comes from his weakness, not from his choice. So-and-so holds office, someone says, and seizes the property of those under him. But do you not seize? Tell me. Do not tell me that he takes talents of gold and you ten obols; for in almsgiving too some threw in gold, and she two lepta, and she brought no less than they. Why? Because it is the choice that is judged, not the gift. Then, in almsgiving you expect God to judge so, and that you, because of your poverty, should carry off no less, if you throw in two lepta, than those who put down ten thousand talents of gold; but in greed not so? And how could that be reasonable? As she, by throwing in two lepta, brought no less because of her choice, so you too, if you filch two lepta, are in no better state than they; but if I may say something surprising, you are greedier than they. For whether someone commits adultery with the emperor's wife, or the poor man's, or the slave's, he is equally an adulterer, since the sin is judged not by the difference of persons but by the wickedness of the will of the one who dared it; so it is here too. And I would rather call him an adulterer who commits adultery with an ordinary woman than him who does so with the empress herself; for there wealth and beauty and many other things were the lures, but here there was nothing; so this man would be more of an adulterer. Again, I would rather call that man a drunkard who is given to poor wine; so also that man greedy who does not despise even small things. For he who seizes much might perhaps despise small things; but he who filches small things would by no means despise great ones; so this man is more of a thief. For he who does not despise silver, how would he despise gold? So when we accuse those in office, let us reckon up our own deeds, and we shall find that we ourselves steal and grasp even more than they, if we judge these things not by the act but by the choice, as it is just to judge. Tell me, if one man were brought to court for taking the goods of a poor man, and another those of a rich man, will not both pay a like penalty? And what? Is not the murderer equally a murderer, whether he kills a cripple and a pauper or a rich and handsome man? When, then, we say that so-and-so seized so-and-so's estate, let us think of our own deeds; and so we shall not condemn others, we shall admire God for his patience, we shall not be indignant that judgment does not come upon them, and we ourselves shall be slower to commit evil. For when we see that we ourselves too are liable for the same things, we shall no longer be so annoyed, but we shall stand back from sins and obtain the good things to come, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom be glory, might and honour to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages [of ages].

“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you heard from me through many witnesses, entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others also. You then, suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one serving as a soldier entangles himself in the affairs of life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him. And if anyone competes as an athlete, he is not crowned unless he competes lawfully. The farmer who labours ought to be the first to partake of the fruits. Consider what I say; for the Lord will give you understanding in all things.” At sea, it gives the disciple great courage that his teacher was shipwrecked and came through safely; for he will no longer think that the storms fall upon him because of his own lack of skill, but because of the nature of things; and this is no small comfort. In wars too, it encourages the officer to see the general wounded and recovering again. So too it brings the faithful some consolation that the apostle suffered many terrible things and was softened by none of them; otherwise he would not have recounted his sufferings. For Timothy, hearing that the man who could do so much and had won over the whole world was in bonds and afflictions, and was not vexed or annoyed at being abandoned by his own, would not, if he himself suffered the same things, think that the thing came from human weakness, nor because he was a disciple and less than Paul—since the teacher too suffered these things—but that all this had happened because of the nature of the matter. For Paul too had worked to that end, and that is why he recounts these things: to strengthen him and restore him. That he did it for this reason, at any rate, is clear: after recounting his afflictions and trials, he added, “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” What are you saying? You shook us with fear; you said that you are bound, that you are in affliction, that all have turned away from you; and as though you had said that you had suffered nothing terrible and had not been abandoned by anyone, you go on, “You then, my child, be strengthened”? Yes, for these things serve to strengthen you more than him. For if I, Paul, suffer these things, much more ought you to bear them; if the teacher does, much more the disciple. And he brings the exhortation with great affection, calling him child, and not simply that, but “my child.” If you are a child, he says, imitate your father; if you are a child, be strengthened by what I have said; or rather, not only by the accounts, but also by the grace of God: for “be strengthened,” he says, “by the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” that is, through the grace of Christ. That is: stand nobly; you know the battle line. So elsewhere, when he says, “Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh,” he says it not to cast them down but to rouse them. So be sober, he says, keep watch, hold on to the grace of God, and contribute what is yours with eagerness and resolve. “And what you heard from me through many witnesses, entrust to faithful people”: faithful, not inquisitive, not given to syllogisms. Faithful—which? Those who do not betray the preaching. “What you heard,” not what you have debated; “for faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God.” What does “through many witnesses” mean? As if he said: you did not hear it secretly or in hiding, but in the presence of many, openly. He did not say, “Tell,” but “Entrust,” as what is deposited in a treasury is deposited in safety. Again he puts fear into the disciple, both from what is above and from what is below. But he does not say only, “Entrust to faithful people”; for what use is it if someone is faithful but cannot pass the teaching on to others, when he himself does not betray the faith but does not make others such? The teacher, then, must have two things: he must be faithful and able to teach. That is why he says, “who will be able to teach others also.” “You then, suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Ah, how great the dignity, to be a soldier of Christ! Consider the kings on earth, how great a thing those who serve under them think it. If, then, suffering hardship belongs to a king's soldier, not suffering hardship does not belong to a soldier. So you must not be annoyed if you suffer hardship—for that belongs to a soldier—but be annoyed if you do not suffer hardship. “No one serving as a soldier entangles himself in the affairs of life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him. And if he competes …” These things were said to Timothy, but through him they are said to every teacher and disciple. Let none of those who hold the office of bishop, then, think it beneath him to hear these things; let him rather think it beneath him not to do them. “If anyone competes,” he says, “he is not crowned unless he competes lawfully.” What does “unless lawfully” mean? It is not enough if he enters the contest, nor if he is anointed, nor if he grapples; unless he keeps the whole law of the contest—that concerning food, and that concerning self-control and decorum, and that of the wrestling school—and in short goes through everything that befits athletes, he is never crowned. And see Paul's wisdom: he mentioned the athletic contest and soldiers—the one so as to be ready for slaughter and killing and blood, the other for endurance, so as to bear everything nobly and be always in training. “The farmer who labours,” he says, “ought to be the first to partake of the fruits.” He spoke from his own examples, he spoke from the teacher; now he speaks also from what commonly happens, from athletes and soldiers; and there he sets out the prizes: for the one, “that he may please the one who enlisted him”; for the other, “that he may be crowned.” And he gives a third example too, which especially suits him: that of the soldier and that of the athlete fit those under rule, but that of the farmer, finally, fits the teacher. Not only as a soldier, nor only as an athlete, but also as a farmer. The farmer takes care not only of himself but also of the fruits of the earth; that is, the farmer too reaps no small reward for his labours.

Here he shows both God's freedom from need and the recompense of teaching, by speaking of a common thing. As the farmer, he says, does not labour without profit, but himself enjoys his own labours before the others, so it is reasonable for the teacher too. Either he means this, or he speaks of teachers being honoured. But that has no ground: for why did he not say simply “farmer,” but “the farmer who labours,” and not simply the one who is weary, but the one who toils hard? Here too, so that no one may be annoyed at the delay: you receive it already, he says; or he means that the recompense is in the labour itself. Since, then, he had set down the examples of soldiers and athletes and farmers, all of them somewhat obscurely … And having said, “The farmer who labours ought to be the first to partake of the fruits,” he added, “Consider what I say; for God will give you understanding in all things.” For it was for this reason that these things were said in proverb and parable. Then, showing his affection again, he does not stop praying for him, as one who fears for a true child, and says, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship even to bonds, as an evildoer.” Why does he mention this here? Chiefly he is aiming at the heretics; at the same time he is restoring Timothy and showing the gain of sufferings, since our teacher Christ himself overcame death through suffering. Remember this, he says, and you will have sufficient comfort. “Remember,” he says, “Jesus Christ, raised …” … for from that time some began to overturn the dispensation, ashamed at the greatness of God's love for humankind. For the benefits God conferred on us were such that people were ashamed to ascribe them to God, and disbelieved that he had come down so far. “According to my gospel,” he says. He puts this everywhere in his letters, saying, “according to my gospel,” either because they ought to obey him, or because there were others preaching a different gospel. “For which I suffer hardship,” he says, “even to bonds, as an evildoer.” Again he brings in the consolation from his own case, again the exhortation; and he anoints the hearer with these two things: with knowing how to suffer hardship, and with not doing so for nothing useful. In this way he gains; in the other he would even be harmed. For what use is it if you show the teacher suffering hardship, but for nothing useful? But this is wonderful, if it is for something useful, for the benefit of those who are taught. “But the word of God is not bound.” That is, if we were worldly soldiers, he says, or if we were waging a war of the senses, these bonds would have force, holding our hands down; but as it is, God has made us such that we are overcome by nothing. For the hands are bound, but not the tongue; no one can bind a tongue, except cowardice and unbelief alone; so if we do not have these, even if you put bonds around us, the preaching is not bound. For example, if someone binds a farmer, he has hindered the sowing, for he sows with his hand; if you bind a teacher, you have not hindered the word, for he sows with the tongue, not with the hand. Our word, then, is not subjected to bonds: while we are bound, it is set free and runs. How? he says. Because, look, even in bonds we preach. This is for the encouragement of those who are free: if we preach in bonds, much more must you who are free do this. Did you hear that I suffer these things as an evildoer? Do not be downcast. For the marvel is great, that one who is bound does what the free do, that one who is bound overcomes all … For the word is God's, not ours; and human bonds will not be able to encircle the word of God. “I suffer these things for the elect.” “That is why,” he says, “I endure everything for the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.” See, here is another exhortation: not for myself, he says, but for the salvation of others I endure these things. It was possible for me to live without danger, it was possible to suffer none of these things, if I looked to my own interests. But for whose sake do I suffer these things? For the good of others, that others may obtain eternal life. What, then, do you promise? He did not simply say, “for these people,” but “for the elect.” If God chose them, we must suffer everything for them, “that they too may obtain salvation.” To say “they too” is to show and say, “as we also do”; for God chose us also. And as God suffered for us, so we too suffer for them; so the thing is a repayment, not a favour. On God's side it was grace, for he conferred his benefits without having first received any; on ours it is a return: having first received benefits from God, we suffer for those for whom we suffer, so that they may obtain salvation. What are you saying? What salvation? You who cannot be the cause of salvation for yourself, but are being destroyed, do you become the cause of salvation for another? That is why he added: not this salvation, he says, but “the one that is in Christ Jesus,” the true salvation, “with eternal glory.” The present things are painful, but they are on earth; the present things are gloomy, but they are temporary; they are full of distaste and pain, but only until today and tomorrow.

But the good things are not of that kind; they are eternal, they are in heaven. That is truly glory, and this is dishonour. For see, I pray you, beloved: there is no glory on earth; the true glory is in heaven. If anyone wishes to be glorified, let him be dishonoured; if anyone wishes to obtain rest, let him be afflicted; if anyone wishes to be honoured and to live in delight forever, let him spit on the things that are temporary. Come, let us show as well as we can that dishonour is glory and glory dishonour, so that we may see the true glory. It is not possible to be glorified on earth; if you wish to be glorified, seek dishonour. And come, let us examine this in the case of two persons, Nero and Paul. The one had the glory of the world, the other its dishonour. How? The one was a tyrant; he had achieved much, set up trophies, had wealth flowing in from every side, countless armies, the greater part of the world subject to him, the imperial city subject to him, the whole senate bowing down; he came forth from the palace itself in splendid array. If he had to arm, he went out armed with gold and precious stones; if he had to sit in peace, he sat clothed in purple. He had many spearmen, many shield-bearers; he was called lord of land and sea, Emperor, Augustus, Caesar, King, and many other such names, which flattery and servility invented; and nothing at all was lacking to him for glory; even sages and potentates and kings trembled at him and feared the man—for besides he was said to be cruel and reckless—; he even wished to be a god, and despised all the idols and the God who is over all himself, and was worshipped as a god. What is greater than this glory? Or rather, what is worse than this dishonour? But somehow my mouth ran ahead under the force of the truth and brought in the verdict before the trial. For the moment let us examine the matter according to the opinion of the many, according to that of the unbelievers, according to flattery. What is greater, by the measure of glory, than being thought a god? Truly this is a great dishonour, that a human being should rave in this way; but for the moment let us examine the matter according to the opinion of the many. Nothing, then, was lacking to him for human glory; he was worshipped by all as a god. But let us set Paul against him, if you will. The man was a Cilician; and how great the distance is between Cilicia and Rome, everyone knows. He was a leatherworker, poor, without experience of outside wisdom, knowing only Hebrew, a language ridiculed by all, and especially by the Italians. For they do not ridicule those who speak a barbarian tongue, or Greek, or any other, so much as the language of the Syrians; and Hebrew has much in common with it. And do not wonder that they despised it; for if they despise Greek, wonderful and beautiful as it is, much more the language of the Hebrews. A man who often lived in hunger and lay down to sleep hungry, a naked man, without anything to put on: “in cold and nakedness,” he says. And not only these things, but he was also in bonds: with robbers, with sorcerers, with grave-robbers, with … and he was scourged as an evildoer, as he says himself. Who, then, is more illustrious? Do not the many not even know the other's name, while this man Greeks and barbarians and Scythians and those at the very ends of the world praise in song every day? But let us not yet examine the present, but the situation at that time. Who was more illustrious? Who more glorious? The one who wore the chain and was dragged in bonds from the prison, or the one who wore the purple and came forth from the palace? The one in bonds, by all means. How? Because the one, though he had armies and presided in splendid array, could not accomplish what he wished, while the prisoner, as an evildoer in mean dress, did everything with greater authority. How, and in what way? The one said, “Do not spread the word of godliness”; the other said, “I will not put up with that; for the word of God is not bound.” And the Cilician, the prisoner, the tentmaker, the poor man, the one who lived in hunger, spat upon the man of Rome, the rich man, the ruler, the master of all, who gave countless gifts to countless people; and with all his armies he could do nothing. Who, then, was illustrious? Who was dignified? The one who conquered in bonds, or the one who was conquered in purple? The one who stood below and struck, or the one who sat above and was struck? The one who gave orders and was despised, or the one who received orders and took no account of them? The one who was alone and prevailed, or the one who was defeated with countless armies? So the emperor went away, the prisoner having set up a trophy over him. Tell me, then: on which side would anyone have wished to be? Do not tell me of what came afterwards; for the moment examine that time: on which side would anyone have wished to be, Paul's or Nero's? I do not mean by the measure of faith—that is clear—but by that of glory and dignity and splendour. Anyone fair-minded would have said, Paul's. For if conquering is more splendid than being conquered, he was the glorious one. And the great thing is not yet that he conquered, but that, dressed as he was, he conquered one dressed as the emperor was. For I will say it again, and I will not stop saying the same things: he wore a chain, and he struck down the one who wore the diadem.

Such is the power of Christ: a chain conquered the royal crown, and this dress was shown to be more splendid than that. He wore squalid rags, as one who lived in a prison, and more than the purple he turned everyone's eyes to the bonds he wore; he stood on the ground, held fast and looking down, and everyone left the man on the golden chariot and paid attention to him—and rightly so. For it was the usual thing to see the emperor seated behind a white team; but this was strange and unexpected, to see a prisoner speaking with the emperor with as much boldness as an emperor would use to a pitiful and wretched slave … those who were the emperor's; and they admired not their own master, but the man who was conquering their master; and the one whom everyone feared and trembled at, this man, alone as he was, trampled underfoot. See how great the splendour is even in the bonds themselves. What would anyone say of what came after? Of the one not even the tomb is known; but this man, more splendid than all kings, lies in the imperial city itself, where he conquered, where he set up his trophy. If anyone mentions the one, he mentions him with censure, even among his own people (for he is said to have been licentious too); the other's memory is everywhere held in praise, not only among us, but also among our enemies. For when the truth shines out, not even enemies can be shameless; if they do not admire him for his faith, they admire him for his boldness, for his courage. This man is proclaimed and crowned every day everywhere, in the mouths of all; the other is pelted with censure and accusations. Which, then, are the splendid things? But I have unwittingly been praising the lion by its claw, when I ought to speak of the true things. And what are these? The things in heaven: how he will come with the King of heaven, in splendid array; how Nero will then stand, downcast and gloomy. And if I seem to you to say incredible and ridiculous things, you are the ridiculous one, for laughing at what deserves no laughter. If you disbelieve what is to come, believe on the strength of what has already happened: it is not yet the time of the crowns, and the athlete has enjoyed so much honour; when the president of the games comes, how much honour will he enjoy? Among things not his own he was a stranger, a stranger and a sojourner, and even so he is admired; when he is among his own, what good will he not enjoy? Now “our life is hidden with Christ in God,” and yet the dead man is more active and more honoured than the living; when “our life” itself comes, what will he not share in, what will he not obtain? It was for this reason that God made him enjoy this honour, not because he needed it. For if while he was in the body he despised the glory that comes from the many, much more now that he is released from the body. And God did not make him enjoy it for this reason alone, but so that those who disbelieve what is to come may be led on at least by what is present. I say that Paul will come with the King of heaven when the resurrection takes place, that he will enjoy countless good things. But the unbeliever does not believe; then let him believe from what is present. The tentmaker is more splendid than the emperor, more honoured than the emperor; no one who became emperor of Rome ever enjoyed so much honour; but the emperor lies cast out somewhere outside, while the other holds the centre of the city, as though he were a king and alive. From these things believe about the future too. If here, where he was driven about, where he was persecuted, he enjoyed so much honour, when he comes, what will it be? If, where he was a tentmaker, he became so illustrious, when he comes shining back at the rays of the sun, what will it be? If with such meanness he prevailed over such magnificence, when he comes, what will he not prevail over? Can one escape the facts? Whom does it not put to shame that the tentmaker became more honoured than the emperor, more admired than all kings? If here things beyond nature have happened, much more in the world to come. Believe what is present, man, if you will not believe what is to come; believe what is seen, man, if you will not believe what is unseen. Or rather, believe what is seen; for so you will also believe what is unseen. But if you will not, it is timely to say the apostle's words: “We are clean of your blood; for we have testified everything to you,” and we have left out nothing that ought to be said. Blame yourselves, and you will have the punishment in hell to reckon with. But let us, beloved children, become imitators of Paul not only in faith but also in life. That we may obtain heavenly glory, let us trample on the glory here; let nothing of all that is present draw us; let us despise what is seen, so that we may obtain what is heavenly; or rather, we shall obtain these things too through those; but let the first aim be to obtain those. May we all be counted worthy of them.

“The saying is faithful: for if we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with [him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;] if we are faithless, he remains faithful; [for he cannot deny] himself. Remind [them of these things, charging them before the Lord] not to fight about words, which is of no use, [to the] ruin [of those who hear].” Many of the weaker sort of people give up before the labour of faith and cannot bear the delay of hope; they look for present things and judge the future by them. Since, then, what lay here was death, tortures, bonds, and he says that they will come to eternal life, no one would have believed it, but would have said, “What are you saying? While I live, I die, and when I die, I live? On earth you promise me nothing, and in heaven you give? The small things you do not give, and the great ones you provide?” So that no one may think this, he makes the proof of it beyond dispute, having laid its foundation already and given proofs (for “Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead” means this: that he rose after death); and now, making the same thing plain again, he says, “The saying is faithful”: that whoever has obtained the heavenly life will also obtain the eternal. How is it faithful? “For if we have died with him,” he says, “we shall also live with him.” Tell me, do we share with him in what is gloomy and toilsome, and no longer in what is good? Not even a human being would do this: refuse a share to one who had chosen to die and be afflicted with him, if he ever came into ease. Where did we die with him? He means this death, both the one through the bath and the one through sufferings; for he says, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord,” and, “we were buried with him through baptism,” and, “we have become united with him in the likeness of his death.” Here he means also the death of trials, or rather this above all; for he was in trials when he wrote these things. What he means is this: if we have died for him, shall we not live through him? This is beyond dispute. “If we endure,” he says, “we shall also [reign with him]” … but “if we endure,” showing that it is not enough to die once (this blessed man died every day), but there is need of much endurance, which Timothy especially needed. For do not tell me of the beginning, he says, but whether it lasts to the end. Then he exhorts from the other side too, not only from the good things but also from the evil ones. For if the wicked were going to share the same things, this is no encouragement; and if those who endured were going to reign with him, while those who did not endure suffered only this, not reigning with him, this too is terrible, but not enough to sting the many. That is why [he says, “If we deny him, he also] will deny us.” So the recompenses are not only in good things, but in the opposite too. Consider what the one whom he denies in his kingdom is likely to suffer. “Whoever denies me,” he says, “I too will deny him.” The repayment is not equal, even if it seems so when he speaks this way; for we who deny are human beings, but he is God; and how great the distance between God and human beings is, what need is there to say? Or …

Besides, by this we harm ourselves, but him not at all; nor can we. That is why he added, making the same thing plain, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful; for he cannot deny himself.” That is, if we do not believe that he rose, he is not harmed by this at all: he is true, he is firm, whether we say so or not. If, then, he is not harmed at all by us who deny him, he demands our confession for no other reason than our advantage. For he remains the same whether we deny him or not. “For he cannot deny himself”: that is, not exist. We say that he does not exist, even if that is not how things are. He does not have a nature capable of not existing; it is not possible—that is, for him to pass into non-existence. He always remains; his being always is. Let us not, then, be disposed as though we were doing him a favour, or as though we were harming him. Then, so that no one might think that Timothy needed these things, [he says, “Remind them of these things, charging them] before the Lord not to fight about words, which is of no use, to the ruin of those who hear.” It is a fearful thing to speak with God as witness. For if no one would dare to set aside the testimony of a man called as witness, much less that of God. I mean something like this: if someone making a contract or writing a will wishes to call trustworthy witnesses, will anyone dare to transfer those things to some outsider? By no means; and even if he wishes to, he refrains, out of fear of the witnesses' credit. What does “charging” mean? He calls God as witness of what is said and done. “Not to fight about words, which is of no use.” Not only this, but also “to the ruin of those who hear.” Not only is there no gain from it, but much harm as well. Remind them of these things, then; and if they despise them, God will judge them. Why does he also exhort them not to fight about words? He knows that the thing is alluring, and that the human soul always wants to fight and to dispute about words. So, so that this may not happen, he does not simply say not to fight about words, but, to make the saying more fearful, he added, “to the ruin of those who hear.” “Do your best to present yourself approved to God, a worker who has no need to be ashamed.” Everywhere the “unashamed.” Why does he take such pains about shame? Because it was likely that many were ashamed both of Paul himself, as a tentmaker, and of the preaching, since its teachers were being put to death. For Christ was crucified, Paul was about to be beheaded, Peter was impaled head downwards, and they suffered these things at the hands of men … “Do not be ashamed,” he says; that is, do not be ashamed at all to do anything that belongs to godliness, even if you must serve as a slave, even if you must suffer anything whatever. How does one become approved? By being a worker who has no need to be ashamed. The worker is ashamed of doing nothing; so too the worker of the gospel, for he must submit to everything. “Rightly cutting the word of truth.” He said this well; for many pull it about from every side and drag it this way and that; many things grow upon it. And he did not say, “straightening,” but “rightly cutting”; that is, cut away what is spurious, and set about such things with great vigour and cut them out: as with a leather strap, with the knife of the Spirit cut away on every side what is superfluous and foreign to the preaching. “But avoid profane [empty talk].” For they will not stop at that point. For when something new has been brought in, it always begets further innovations; and the wandering of one who has left the calm harbour is endless, and he will stop nowhere. […“and their talk will spread like gangrene”: an] evil [that spreads], that can no longer be checked by treatment, but ruins the whole. He shows that novel talk is a disease, or rather worse than a disease. Here he shows that they cannot be corrected, and that they went astray not by chance but willingly; and that is why these especially cannot be corrected: “Among whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus,” he says, “who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened, and they are overturning the faith of some.” He said well, “They will advance further”; for this alone seems to be the terrible thing, but see how many things are born of it. For if the resurrection is already past, we are penalized not only in this, that we have been deprived of that great glory, but also in that the judgment is done away with, if it has already happened, and the recompense too; for if the resurrection has already happened, the recompense has happened too. So the good have enjoyed afflictions and pains, and the wicked, who live in great luxury, are not punished—a fine thing indeed! It would be better to say that there is no resurrection than that it has already happened. “And they are overturning,” he says, “the faith of some”: not of all, but of some. For if there is no resurrection, what belongs to the faith is overturned too: “if there is no resurrection, our preaching is empty,” and “neither has Christ been raised”; and if he did not rise, neither was he born, nor did he ascend into heaven. Do you see how this error seems to oppose the doctrine of the resurrection only, but drags many terrible things along with it? “What then?” he says. “Must nothing be done for those who are being overturned?” “Nevertheless,” he says, “the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.’” 3. He shows that even before they were overturned they were not firm; for otherwise they would not have been overturned at the first assault, just as Adam was not firm even before the commandment. For those who are fixed not only suffer nothing from deceivers but are even admired. “Firm,” he says, and “a foundation.” This is how one must hold to the faith. “Having this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his.’” What is this? He took it from Deuteronomy. That is, the firm souls stand fixed and immovable. How are they known? By having these letters upon their deeds, by being known by God and not perishing along with the others, by having departed from unrighteousness. “Let everyone,” he says, “who names the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.” These are the marks of the foundation; this is how a firm foundation is shown. It is as though someone had inscribed letters upon a stone so that they might signify something; and these letters are shown through works. “Having,” he says, “this seal” fixed upon it. “Let everyone,” he says, “who names the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.” So when someone is unrighteous, he does not belong to the foundation. So this too belongs to the seal: not doing what is unrighteous. Let us not, then, lay aside the royal seal and the mark, so that we may not be unsealed, so that we may not be rotten, so that we may be foundations, and firm foundations, so that we may not be carried about. This is what shows those who are God's: those who depart from unrighteousness. For how can anyone belong to God, who is righteous, if he does what is unrighteous, fighting him with his works and insulting him with his deeds? Again we are accusing unrighteousness, and again we have many who are hostile to us. For like a tyrant this passion has seized everyone's soul; and the terrible thing is that it is not by necessity or force, but by persuasion and gentleness, and they are grateful for this slavery. This is truly the terrible thing; for if they were held by force and not by love, they would quickly have revolted. And why does the thing seem sweet, when it is very bitter? And why is righteousness bitter, when it is very sweet? Because of our senses. In this way some have even thought honey bitter, and have taken something harmful with pleasure. The cause lies not in the nature of things but in the perversion of those who are diseased. Consider the judgment-seat of our soul. For if a balance has a tottering pan, it does not weigh the weights justly … And if a soul does not have the pan of its reasonings fixed and securely fastened to the law of God, it will not be able to judge things well, but is carried about and dragged down. For if one examines carefully, he will see that the bitterness of unrighteousness is great, not for those who suffer it but for those who commit it, and for these more than for those. And let us not yet speak of the future, but for the moment of things here: does it not bring fights and lawsuits, condemnation and envy and evil-speaking? What is more bitter than these? Does it not bring hostilities, wars, accusations? Does not the conscience continually scourge and bite us? I would wish, if it were possible, to draw out of the body the soul of the unjust man, and you would see it passing judgment on itself. For even if we fall to the very bottom of wickedness, the judgment-seat of the mind is not corrupted, but stands unbribed; and no one pursues unrighteousness calling it good; he invents pretexts and does everything to strip off the charge, at least in words; but he will not be able to strip it off his conscience. For here, elegance of words and bribery of magistrates and crowds of flatterers can obscure what is just; but within, in the conscience, none of these things happens: flatterers are not present, money is not present to corrupt the judge; for the judgment-seat has been placed in us by nature, by God, and what comes from God could suffer nothing of the kind.

But also unpleasant sleep and fantasies, and the evil deed coming continually to mind, spoil our rest. For example, someone has unjustly taken a man's house: not only does the one deprived of it groan, but also the one who deprived him, if he is persuaded about the judgment; and if anyone is persuaded of it, he groans and laments bitterly; but if he does not believe in what is to come, even so he blushes with shame. Or rather, there is no human being, whether Greek or Jew or heretic, who does not fear the judgment; and even if he does not reflect about the future, he fears and trembles about things here, lest he pay for it more heavily in his money, in his children, in his household, in his life; for God does many such things. For since the doctrine of the resurrection is not strong enough to bring everyone to their senses, here too he provides and brings into view many proofs of his just judgment: so-and-so, who acted greedily, had no children; so-and-so fell in war; another was maimed in body; another lost a child. These things he thinks of, these things he imagines; he lives with continual fear. Do you not know how much those who do wrong suffer? Or are these things not bitter? And even if nothing of the kind should happen, does not everyone condemn him? Does not everyone hate him? Does not everyone turn away from him? Does not everyone say that he is more brutish than the beasts, even the wrongdoers themselves? For if they condemn themselves, much more another, calling him robber, grasping, destroyer. What sweetness, then, does it have? None, except that more anxiety is added about guarding those goods, more care and worry. For the more money someone surrounds himself with, the more intense the sleeplessness he creates for himself. And what of the curses of the wronged, their petitions? And what if illness comes upon him? For it is not possible, it is not possible, for one who has fallen ill, even if he is the most godless of all, not to be anxious and worried about those things, when he can do nothing. For while we are here, the soul, living in pleasure, does not put up with what is painful; but when it is about to leap out of the body, then greater fear grips it, since it has come to the very porch of the court. Robbers too live without fear while they are in prison; but when someone leads them out and stands them by the curtain of the court, they melt with fear. For when the fear of death comes upon it, like fire it burns away all those things and compels the soul to be wise and to be anxious about the things there; no longer does the desire for money hold it, no longer the love of gain, no longer that of bodies. Like clouds, then, these things pass away and leave the judgment-seat clear, while grief comes in and softens its hardness. For nothing is so opposed to wisdom as luxury, just as, on the other hand, affliction is well suited to wisdom. Consider, I pray you, what the grasping man will be like then. “For an hour of affliction,” it says, “makes one forget much luxury.” What will he be like when he thinks of those he has robbed, those he has wronged, those he has defrauded? What will he be like when he sees others enjoying the fruits of his greed, and himself about to pay the penalty? For it is not possible, it is not possible, for one who has fallen into illness not to suspect these things too; often the soul itself is turned over from its depths, in anguish. How bitter is this, tell me? These things must happen with every illness. And if he sees others punished, if he sees them dying, what will he not suffer? And these things happen here; but those there one cannot even describe: how great the punishment, how many the penalties, how many the tortures, how many the racks. We say these things: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” We speak of them continually, not because we wish to speak of them continually, but because we are compelled. For we would wish that there were no need of such words at all; or failing that, that we might free you from the disease with a little treatment and bring you back to health. But while you remain in your sickness, it would be the mark of a slack and vulgar soul to give up the method of healing, and of harshness and cruelty. For if we beg the doctors who have given up on the body, saying, “Do not neglect him, but by all means go on applying what you can until his last breath, and do not slacken,” shall we not much more exhort ourselves? For perhaps, even after coming to the very gates of Hades and to the very porch of wickedness, a man will be able to return to soberness, to recover and be strengthened, and to lay hold of eternal life. How many, after the tenth hearing, did not even become aware, but later turned from a single one? Or rather, not from a single one; for even if they were insensible through the ten, they nevertheless profited, and later showed the fruit all at once. As with a tree that has received ten blows and has not fallen from the ten, but afterwards, when one more is brought down on it, comes down entirely: the result is not the work of the one blow, but the success of the last belongs to the ten; and whoever looks at the root knows this, but whoever judges from above, from the trunk, can see nothing of the kind. So it is here too. And often, when doctors have applied many remedies, there has been no benefit; but afterwards someone came and set everything right. The work is not his alone, but also that of those who had already worked on the disease. So even if we do not yield the fruits of hearing now, we shall yield them later; for that we shall yield them I am fully persuaded. For it is not possible, it is not possible, for such love of listening and such longing to come to nothing—God forbid!—but may we all, having become worthy of Christ's exhortations, obtain the eternal good things.

“But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honour and some for dishonour. If then anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work.” Many people are still troubled, even now, as to why the wicked remain and are not destroyed. There are, then, many other reasons for this; for example, so that they may become [a help] to many; for, because God is kind and patiently bears with them in their slackness, and leaves them time for repentance so that they may come to their senses if they wish, many have both profited by changing and led many others to salvation by their own example. But Paul brings in something new here, speaking as follows: “In a great house …” Here Paul cites a comparable case: “For in a great house,” he says, “there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay,” showing by this that, as in a great house there is naturally a great difference between vessels, so it is here in the whole world. He is speaking not of the church but of the whole world. For do not, I pray you, take it to mean the church: there he wishes no vessel to be of wood or clay, but all of gold and silver, where there is the body of Christ, where there is a pure virgin, “not having spot or wrinkle.” What he means is this: do not let it trouble you that there are wicked and defiled people; for in a great house there are such vessels. What then? But they do not enjoy the same honour, he says; some are for honour, others for dishonour. “Yes,” someone says, “but in the house they serve some use, whereas in the world they do not at all.” Even if not for that kind of activity, God uses these very people for other purposes: for instance, the vainglorious man builds a great deal, as do the grasping man, the merchant, the shopkeeper, the magistrate; there are certain works in the world that suit them. But the golden vessel does nothing of the kind; it is occupied about the royal table. He does not, then, say that wickedness is a necessary thing—how could he?—but that these people too have a work. For if all were gold and silver, there would be no need of those; for instance, if all were hardy, there would be no need of buildings; if all were free from luxury, there would be no need of delicacies; if all attended only to need, there would be no need of splendid building. “If then anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified.” Do you see that being gold or clay is not a matter of nature or of material necessity, but of our choice? There, the clay vessel would not become gold, nor could the gold one fall to the cheapness of the clay; but here great change and transformation take place. Paul was a vessel of clay, but became gold; Judas was a vessel of gold, but became clay. So the clay vessels come from uncleanness: the man who uses prostitutes, the grasping man, becomes clay. How then does he say elsewhere, “having this treasure in clay vessels,” so that he honours the clay vessel and does not disparage it, calling it a receptacle of treasure? There he indicates nature itself, not the kind of material. What he means is this: our body is a clay vessel. For as earthenware is nothing else than baked mud, so our body is nothing else than mud hardened by the warmth of the soul. That it is earthen is clear: often, as that vessel falls and is broken and shattered, so the body too, falling in death, is dissolved. For how do bricks differ from potsherds, strong and dry as they are? And how does flesh differ from mud? Is it not likewise made with water? But, as I said, how is it that there he does not disparage the thing? There he is speaking of nature, here of choice. “If then anyone cleanses himself,” he says. He did not say, “cleanses,” but “cleanses himself out,” that is, cleanses himself completely. “He will be a vessel for honour, sanctified, useful to the master.” So those are useless, even if they serve some purpose. “Prepared for every good work.” Even if it is not in use, still it is fit and ready to receive. We must, then, be prepared for everything, whether for death or for martyrdom; we must be ready, whether for virginity or for all these things. “Flee youthful desires.” Youthful desires are not only those of sexual immorality, but every disordered desire, since one must not act like the young. Whether one is insolent, or loves power, or money, or bodies, or anything at all, the desire is youthful and foolish; while the heart is not yet steady, nor the mind settled deep, but still unsettled, all these things are bound to happen. So that no one may be caught by these, what does he advise? “Flee youthful fancies, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with all who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” By righteousness he means virtue in general, godliness in one's life, faith, love, gentleness. What does “with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” mean? As if he said: trust only those—not those who merely call on him, but those who do so without guile, without hypocrisy, who have nothing deceitful, who come in peace, who are not quarrelsome; mix with those. With the others you need not be intimate; only keep the peace as far as it depends on you. “Avoid foolish and ignorant questionings, knowing that they breed quarrels.”

Do you see how everywhere he leads him away from questionings? Not because he could not refute them adequately—for he could; and even if he could not, he would have said to him, “Strive to be fit to refute such things,” as when he says, “Attend to reading; for by doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” But he knows that it is useless even to go down at all into such contests, and that there will be no end except fighting and hostility, insults and abuse. Avoid these questionings, then. So there are other questionings, those about the Scriptures and those about other matters. “And the Lord's servant must not fight.” So one must not fight even in questioning. For the servant of God must be far from fighting. For God is the God of peace; how would the servant of the God of peace fight? “But be gentle to all.” “For the Lord's servant must not fight,” he says, “but be gentle to all.” How then does he say, “Rebuke them with all authority,” and here again, “Let no one [despise] your youth”? Because this too belongs to gentleness. For a severe rebuke, when it is given with forbearance, is the one most able to sting. For it is possible, it is possible, to touch someone more with gentleness than to put him to shame with boldness. “Apt to teach”: that is, toward all who wish to be taught. For “a factious man,” he says, “after one and a second admonition, avoid.” “Patient under evil.” He added this well; for the teacher must have this above all; otherwise everything happens in vain. For if fishermen often cast their nets all day and catch nothing, yet do not give up, much more should we not. For see what happens: it often happens that through continual teaching the plough of the word goes down into the depth of the soul and cuts out the passion that troubles it. For one who has heard ten thousand times will be affected somewhat; it is not possible for a man who hears continually not to be affected at all. So it sometimes happens that someone who was about to be persuaded loses everything because we gave up. And it is just as if someone inexperienced in farming dug round a newly planted vine in the first year, and in the second looked to get fruit, and again in the third, and not getting it, then, after the three years had passed, despaired and abandoned it in the fourth, when he was about to receive the return for those labours. Having said “patient under evil,” he is not satisfied, but goes on to say, “correcting his opponents with gentleness.” For the teacher must above all do this with gentleness; for a soul that needs to learn cannot perceive anything useful amid boldness and fighting; even if it is willing to attend, once thrown into perplexity it will learn nothing. For whoever is to learn anything useful must, before all else, be well disposed toward the teacher; and unless this is first prepared, nothing that is needful or useful can come about; and no one would be well disposed toward one who is bold and insulting. How then does he say, “A factious man, after one or a second admonition, avoid”? He means the incorrigible one, whom he knows to be incurably sick. “If perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses out of the snare of the devil.” What he means is something like this: perhaps there will be some correction; and “perhaps” is said of what is uncertain. So we must stand back only from those about whom we can declare clearly, and of whom we are persuaded that, whatever happens, they will not change. “With gentleness,” he says. Do you see that those who wish to learn must be received in this way, and that one must never withdraw from the discussions before giving the proof? “Having been captured by him for his will.” He said well, “having been captured”; for meanwhile they are swimming about in error. See how he teaches modesty. He did not say, “If perhaps you may be able,” but “If perhaps the Lord may grant them to come to their senses.” Even if it happens, the whole is the Lord's doing: you plant, you water, he sows and makes it bear fruit. Let us never, then, be disposed as though we ourselves were persuading anyone, even if we do persuade. “And having been captured,” he says, “by him for his will.” One might say this not about doctrines only, but also about life; for his will is that we live rightly. And there are some in the devil's snare on account of their life as well; so one must not lose patience with these either. “If perhaps they may come to their senses,” he says, “having been captured for his will.” The “if perhaps” shows great patience; for not doing the will of … 3. For as a sparrow, even if it is held not by its whole body but by one part, I mean its foot, is under the power of the one who set the snare, so we too, even if we are not held wholly, both by our faith and by our life, but by our life only, are under the power of the devil. “For not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’” he says, “will enter the kingdom of heaven”; and again, “I do not know you; depart from me, you who work lawlessness.” Do you see that there is no gain from faith when the Master does not know us? And to the virgins he says the same: “I do not know you.” What, then, is the gain of virginity and of the many labours, when the Master does not know them? And in many places we find people charged with nothing concerning their faith, but punished only for a wicked life; as elsewhere others are charged with nothing concerning their life … for these things hold together. Do you see that when we do not do the will of God, we are in the snare of the devil? And not only through our whole life, but often through one defect, we go into hell, when our other good deeds do not balance it. For the virgins too were charged not with sexual immorality, not with adultery, not with envy, not with malice, not with drunkenness, not with false belief, but with lack of oil; that is, they did not give alms; for this is the oil. And those who were condemned, “Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire,” were again charged with none of these things, but they too because they did not feed Christ. Do you see that neglecting almsgiving is enough to bring one into the fire of hell? For where, tell me, will the man who does not give alms be of any use? You fast every day? So did those virgins then, but they gained nothing. You pray? And what of that? Without almsgiving prayer is fruitless; without it all things are unclean, all useless; the greater part of virtue is cut away. “He who does not love his brother,” it says, “does not know God.” But how do you love him, when you will not share with him even these small and cheap things? Tell me, are you chaste? For what reason? Is it not from fear of punishment? “By no means,” you say, “but I pursue the thing by nature.” For if you are chaste from fear of punishment, and endure such violence and such tyranny, much more ought you to give alms. For it is not the same thing to master the desire for money and the desire for bodies; the labour is greater in the second. Why? Because that desire is ours, in the body, whereas the things of money are not. This is how we can be made equal to God: by showing mercy and compassion; so when we do not have this, we are deprived of everything. He did not say, “If you fast, you are like your Father”; he did not say, “If you remain virgins,” nor did he say, “If you pray, you are like your Father”; for none of these belongs to God, nor does God do any of them. But what? “Be compassionate, as your Father in heaven.” This is God's work. If, then, you do not have this, what do you have? “I desire mercy,” he says, “and not sacrifice.” God made heaven, he made earth and sea; these are great things and worthy of his wisdom; but by none of them did he draw human nature to himself as by his mercy and love for humankind. For that was a work of wisdom and power and goodness; but this much more, that he became a slave. Do we not admire him more for this? Are we not more amazed at him for this? Nothing draws God so much as mercy. And all the prophets speak much about these things, up and down. But by mercy I do not mean mercy combined with greed; for this is not mercy. A thorn root never produces oil; the olive's does; so neither does the root of greed produce mercy, nor that of injustice, nor that of robbery. Do not slander almsgiving; do not make it a thing accused by everyone. For if you rob for this reason, so that … nothing is worse than this almsgiving. For when it is born of robbery, it is not almsgiving; it is a kind of harshness and cruelty, an insult to God. If Cain, who offered the inferior of his own goods, so offended, how will one who offers what belongs to others not offend? An offering is nothing else than a sacrifice, a cleansing, not uncleanness. And with dirty hands you do not dare to pray, but offering filth and uncleanness from robbery you think you are doing nothing terrible? You do not let your hands be filled with dirt and uncleanness, but you make them clean and then make your offering; and yet that dirt brings no charge, whereas the other deserves accusation and reproach.

Let us not, then, look only to this, that we offer and pray with clean hands, but also that what we offer is clean. Otherwise it is a laughing-stock, as if someone washed the dish all round and then filled it with unclean gifts: is this not mockery and a joke? Let the hands be clean; and they will be, if we wash them not with water only, but first with righteousness: this is the cleansing of the hands. But if we are full of injustice, even if you wash them ten thousand times, there is no gain. “Wash,” it says, “become clean.” What then? Did he go on to say, “Go to the springs, go to the baths and the lakes and the rivers”? None of these; but what? “Remove your wickedness from your souls”: that is, “Become clean.” This is what frees one from defilement; this is the true cleanness. For the other brought no great benefit, but this grants us boldness before God. The other even adulterers and thieves and murderers can have, and soft and dissolute men, and men who use prostitutes and have prostituted themselves—these most of all. For these are the people who take the greatest care of all over the cleanness of the body, continually smelling of perfumes, fumigating the tomb; for the body is a tomb for them, since the soul within is dead. So it is possible even for these to pursue this cleanness, but not the inward one. It is no great thing if you wash the body; this cleansing is Jewish, unprofitable and useless when the inward one is absent. Suppose someone has rot or spreading sores: let him wash his body all over—what is the gain? What is the result? If no one can help rot in the body by having the outer surface washed over and cleaned, when the rot is in the soul, what shall we gain from the cleanness of the body? Nothing. We need clean prayers; and prayers could not be clean when the soul that gives birth to them is defiled. And nothing makes a soul so defiled as greed and robbery. But there are some who, having done countless evils during the day, go into the church in the evening after bathing, stretching out their hands with great boldness, as though they had put away everything in the pool of water. If this were so, bathing every day would be a great gain; if this were so, I myself would never stop pestering the baths, if they made people clean and freed them from sins. These things are a joke and nonsense, toys and children's games. God does not turn away from dirt on the body, but from uncleanness of the soul. For hear him saying, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” In body? By no means, but “those who are pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And what does the prophet say? “Create in me a clean heart, O God”; and again, “Wash your heart from wickedness.” It is a great good to be in the habit of good things. See how these things, small and unprofitable as they are, … and when the soul has once been taken over by a habit, it does not give it up, nor will it bear to come to prayer without first carrying it out. I mean something like this: we have put ourselves in the habit of washing and then praying, and one cannot do this without washing; we do not pray gladly if we do it with unwashed hands, as though we were about to offend God and were under a bad conscience. If this small thing has such tyranny over us and is carried out without fail every day, then if we had put ourselves in the habit of almsgiving and resolved always to carry it out, never to enter a house of prayer with empty hands, the thing would have been achieved. For great is the tyranny of habit, both in good things and in bad; we shall need no further labour, since it draws us on of itself. Many have put themselves in the habit of signing themselves continually, and no longer need anyone to remind them; even when the mind is often wandering elsewhere, the hand, taught by habit as by a living teacher, moves of its own accord to make the sign. Some have put themselves in the habit of not swearing, and they will not do it, either willingly or unwillingly. Let us too establish ourselves in this habit, the habit of almsgiving. How much labour would we have needed for this remedy to be found? For tell me: if there were not the consolation of almsgiving, and then, having sinned countless times, we had made ourselves liable to punishment, would we not have lamented bitterly? Would we not have said, “Would that it were possible to wash away our sins with money, and we would have spent everything; would that it were possible to drive out God's anger with money, and we would not have spared our possessions”? For if we do this in sickness, and say in the face of death, “If it were possible to buy off death, so-and-so would have given all he had,” much more would we here. And yet see how great God's love for humankind is: he has not given you a temporary death to buy off, but eternal death. Do not buy this small life, he says, but that eternal life; that is the one I sell you, not this one; I am not mocking you. Even if you got this one, you would have got nothing; I know that the other is great. But the shopkeepers and the traders in the things of this life do not act so; they are free to cheat whom they wish, and they give the small thing for the great. But he does not do so: he gives far greater things in return for small ones. Tell me, if you went to a merchant, and two stones lay there, one cheap, the other very precious and able to make you rich, and you paid the price of the small one and received the great one, would you have accused him? By no means; rather you would have admired him. So now too two lives lie before us, the temporary one and the eternal. God sells the one, not the other: the eternal is the one he sells us, not the temporary. Why are we vexed, like foolish children, that we receive the precious one? “Is it possible, then,” someone says, “to buy life with money?” Yes, when we pay down what is our own and not what belongs to others, when we do not commit assault. “But it is mine now,” someone says. It is not yours after the robbery; it is his; it belongs to another, even if you are its master ten thousand times over. For if you receive a deposit, these things are not yours even during the time the depositor is abroad, though they lie in your keeping. If, then, what we received from depositors who gave it willingly and gratefully is not ours, not even during the time we hold it, much more is this not ours, which we seize from the unwilling and reluctant. He is its master, even if you hold it ten thousand times over. Virtue is truly ours; but money is not ours, not even our own money, let alone other people's: today it is ours, tomorrow it is not. But the things of virtue are ours; for virtue is not lost like those things, but is present whole to all. Let us, then, acquire it and despise money, so that we may obtain the truly good things. May we all be counted worthy of them …

“But know this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, [ungrateful … having a form of godliness but having denied] its power. Avoid these also. For among them are those who creep into houses and take captive silly women laden with sins, led away by various desires and pleasures, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” In the former letter he said, “The Spirit says expressly that in later times some will depart from the faith”; and again in another place in that same letter he foretells something of the kind that will happen later. And here again he does the same, saying, “But know this, that in the later times difficult times will come.” And he shows this not only from the later times but also from those already past: “Just as Jannes and Jambres,” he says, “opposed Moses.” And again from reasoning: “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver.” Why does he do this? So that Timothy may not be troubled, nor any of us, when there are wicked men. If there were such in Moses' time, he says, and there will be such later, it is no wonder that there are such in our time too. “In the later times difficult times will come.” He does not say this to blame the days or the times, but the people who will be living then. For we too are accustomed to call times evil or not evil from what happens in them through human agency. And at once he sets down the cause of all the evils, the root and the spring from which all the others are born: arrogant contempt. Whoever is caught by this passion does not look even to his own interests. For when someone does not look to his neighbour's interests, when he neglects them, how will he look to his own? For as one who looks to his neighbour's interests will place his own well among them, so one who despises his neighbour's will disregard his own too. For if we are members of one another, our neighbour's salvation is not his alone but belongs to the rest of the body as well; and our neighbour's harm does not stop with him alone, but racks all the rest with pain. If we are a building, whatever part suffers damage harms the rest too; but if it is solid, it can help bear up the rest. So it is in the church too: have you disregarded your brother? You have wronged yourself. How? Your own member has suffered no small harm. For if the one who does not share his money goes off to hell, the one who sees his brother in danger in more necessary things and does not stretch out a hand will suffer this much more, inasmuch as the loss concerns greater things. “For people will be,” he says, “lovers of self.” The lover of self is the one who least of all loves himself; it is rather the lover of his brother who loves himself. From this comes love of money. For self-love, destructive and petty as it is, contracts love, which is broad and poured out everywhere, and gathers it into a narrow space. “Lovers of money.” From this boasting is born, from boasting arrogance, from arrogance blasphemy, from blasphemy madness and disobedience. For one who exalts himself against human beings readily does so against God too. This is how sins are born: often they climb up from below. One who is reverent toward human beings is much more so toward God; one who is considerate toward his fellow servants is much more so toward the Master; but one who despises his fellow servants will go on step by step and despise God himself. Let us not, then, despise one another; for this is an evil teaching, which teaches us to despise God. Indeed, in this very thing we despise God, when we despise one another, since he has commanded us to show great zeal for one another. But I will also, if you wish, make this plain in another way, from examples. Cain despised his brother; at once he despised God too. How did he despise him? See how insolently he answers God: “Am I my brother's keeper?” Esau in turn despised his brother, and he despised God. That is why God said, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” That is why Paul too says, “that no one be sexually immoral or profane like Esau.” Joseph's brothers despised him; they despised God too. The Israelites despised Moses; that is why they despised God too. So too the sons of Eli despised the people; they despised God too. Would you like to see it from the opposite side as well? Abraham spared his kinsman; he also obeyed God; this is clear from his obedience in the case of his son Isaac, and from all his other virtue. Again, Abel, being gentle toward his brother, was reverent toward God too. Let us not, then, despise one another, so that we may not learn to despise God; let us honour one another, so that we may learn to honour God too. One who is bold against human beings becomes bold against God too. And when love of money and self-love and madness come together in the same person, what is still lacking for complete destruction? Everything is corrupted, and a great flood of the mire of sins pours in. “Ungrateful,” he says. For how will the lover of money be grateful? To whom will he be grateful? To no one: he thinks everyone an enemy, since he wants to take what belongs to all. Even if you empty out your whole fortune for him, he is not grateful to you; he is vexed that you did not have much and make him master of much. Even if you make him master of the world, he is not grateful to you; for he thinks he has received nothing. This man's desire is insatiable. For his desire comes from a disease; and such are the desires of diseases.

The man with a fever can never be satisfied, but, always drunk with desire, is never filled; he is always thirsty. So too the man who is mad for money never knows how to fill up his desire; and since he is never filled, however much you pour out for him, he will not be grateful to you. He would be grateful only to the one who had given him as much as he wants; but no one will be able to do this, for what he wants has no measure; so he will be grateful to no one. Nothing is so ungrateful as a lover of money; nothing so insensible as one greedy for wealth. He is the enemy of the whole world; he is vexed that there are human beings; for he wants everything to be full of emptiness, so that he may have everyone's possessions himself. And he imagines many such things. “If there were an earthquake in the city,” he says, “and everyone were buried, and I alone were left, so as to take everyone's goods, if that were possible! If a plague came and destroyed everyone but left the gold! If there were a sinking of the land, a flood from the sea!” And he devises countless such things: nothing good, but he prays for earthquakes and thunderbolts and wars and plagues and all such things to happen. Tell me, you wretched and miserable man, more slavish than any slave: if everything were gold, would you not have perished among the gold, destroyed by hunger? If an earthquake came … of this destructive desire; for if there were no human being on the earth, the means of life would not have been provided for you. For let us suppose that all the people in the world were utterly wiped out, and then their gold and silver somehow passed to you of its own accord (for they imagine foolish and impossible things), and their wealth, the gold, the silver, the silk garments, the gold-embroidered things, all came into your hands of their own accord: what is the gain? That is just how death would most surely seize you, with no …, no farmers, wild beasts grazing over the land, demons terrifying your soul. Even now many demons hold it; but then they would have struck you with terror and destroyed you at once. “But that is not what I wanted,” he says; “I wanted there to be farmers and bakers too.” But they too would consume. “But I did not want them to consume.” So insatiable is this desire. What could be more ridiculous than these things? Do you see how helpless the case is? He wants to have many people to serve him, and he is pained that they share in food, as diminishing his fortune. What then, tell me? Do you want people to be made of stone? All this is a mockery: waves and squall and storm and towering seas, and great turmoil in the soul; he is always hungry, always thirsty. Tell me, shall we not pity this man and weep for him? In the body such a thing is the most grievous punishment, called boulimia by the physicians, when someone gorges himself on much and is not freed from hunger; and shall we not weep for this same passion in the soul? For love of money is a boulimia of the soul, which is filled with much but never stops, but is always racked by desire. If it were necessary to drink hellebore, or to undergo something ten thousand times heavier than that, in order to be freed from this passion, ought one not to accept it eagerly? There is no quantity of money that can fill that insatiable belly. Shall we not, then, be ashamed, if some are so mad about money, while we do not show even a small fraction of that love toward God, but God becomes less honoured by us than silver? For silver people endure sleeplessness and travels and dangers one after another, and hatred and plots and everything; but for God we will not bear even to let out a bare word, nor to incur hostility; if we ought to defend someone who is oppressed, we shrink from the enmity of the powerful and from the dangers, and we betray the one who is wronged; and having received power from God to help, we lose it because we do not wish to be hated or to make enemies. And at once the many put forward this saying: “Be loved without cause; do not be hated without cause.” But is this being hated without cause? What is better than this hatred? For hatred on God's account is much better than friendship on God's account. When we are loved on God's account, we are debtors for the honour; but when we are hated, he is our debtor for the reward. However much the lovers of money love gold, they know no measure in their love; but we, if we do some small thing, think we have accomplished everything. As those love gold, we do not love God—no, not a small fraction of that. Great is the charge against them, that they have such madness for gold; great is our condemnation, that we are not so mad for God; but the honour that they pay to earth (for mined gold is earth), we do not pay to the Master of all.

Let us look at their madness and be ashamed. For what does it help if we are not on fire for gold, when we do not seek God earnestly either? For here people despise wife and children and property and even their own safety, and that without knowing that they will increase their property; for often in the midst of their hopes they have given up their life too and departed, having laboured in vain. But we, though we know that we shall obtain what we long for if we love him as we ought, do not love even so, but have let everything grow cold: our love for our neighbour, our love for God; and our love for God because of our love for our neighbour. For it is not possible, it is not possible, for a man who does not know how to love to have anything noble or a manly spirit. For the foundation of all good things is nothing other than love. “On this,” he says, “hang the law and the prophets.” For as fire, when it gets into a wood, usually clears everything away, so too the warmth of love, wherever it falls, removes and cuts out everything that damages the divine seed, and makes the ground clean to receive the seeds. Where there is love, all evils are removed: there is no love of money, the root of all evils; there is no boasting—for why would anyone boast against his friend? Nothing makes one so humble as love. For we perform the services of household slaves for our friends and are not ashamed, but are even grateful to them for this slavery; we do not spare our money, and often not even our bodies; for people have even risked danger for the one they love. There is no envy, nor slander, where there is genuine friendship; for not only do we not slander our friends, but we even silence those who slander them. All is calm, all gentle; not a trace of fighting and rivalry appears; all is full of peace. “For love,” he says, “is the fulfilling of the law”; nothing unpleasant comes with it. How so? Because the sins themselves—greed, robbery, envy, slander, madness, perjury, falsehood—are all dissolved when love is present. For perjurers perjure themselves because they want to rob; but no one would rob the one he loves; he would rather give up his own goods to the beloved, for we are more grateful in doing so than if we were receiving from him. All of you who have had friends know this—friends, I mean, not as far as the name goes, nor by a mere form of address, but if anyone has loved as one ought to love, if anyone has been bound to someone. And if some do not know it, let them learn from those who do. Now I will tell you of a wonderful friendship from the Scriptures. Jonathan, the son of Saul, loved David, “and his soul was bound to him,” it says; so much so that David, lamenting him, said, “Your love fell upon me like the love of women. You were wounded to death for me.” What then? Did Jonathan envy him? By no means, though he had reason to envy. How? He saw from events that the kingdom was coming to David, and yet he felt nothing of the kind; he did not say, “This is the man who will deprive me of my father's kingdom,” but helped to secure the rule for him, and did not spare his father for his friend's sake. But let no one think him undutiful to his father; for he did not wrong his father, but checked his plots and his injustices. He spared him rather than wronged him; he did not let him be carried away into an unjust murder. He was willing even to die many times for David. He did not accuse him, but even silenced his father; he did not envy him, but even helped to build up his rule; he shared with him not only his money but also safety. Why do I say money? He even laid down his life for him. He did not defer to his own father for his friend's sake, since the one was attempting unjust deeds, while the other was conscious of nothing of the kind. So that friendship went with justice. Such, then, was Jonathan. Let us now look at David. He had no opportunity to repay the favours; for Jonathan [died before] David's reign, and before the one who received the kindness came to the kingdom, the one who did the kindness perished. What then? In what was possible and allowed, let us see how the righteous man showed his friendship. “[Very] lovely [you were] to me … to me.” Was this all? This too was no small thing; but he also [took care of] that man's son and grandson, [repaying] the father's kindness, and he went on keeping and guarding them as though they were the offspring of a son. Such friendship I wish all of you to have, both toward the living and toward the departed.

Let the women hear (for it was chiefly for this reason that I said “toward the departed”): those who enter second marriages and corrupt the bed of the dead man, they who loved their first husband. I do not say these things to forbid second marriage, nor to call it licentious; for Paul does not allow me, putting a bridle on my mouth and saying to the women, “But if she marries, she has not sinned.” But let us look at what follows as well: “But she is happier if she remains as she is.” This is much better than that. Why? For many reasons. For if not marrying at all is better than marrying, much more is this better than that. “But some,” someone says, “could not bear widowhood and fell into calamities.” That is because they did not know what widowhood is. Widowhood is not this, simply not entering a second marriage, just as virginity is not simply being unmarried. What is it then? As there it is decorum and devotion, so here it is living alone, persevering in prayers, being free from luxury and self-indulgence … If, while remaining a widow, you were to keep the same pomp, the same display, the same dress that you had while your husband was alive, it is better to marry; for intercourse is not evil, but restless meddling is. You, however, do not do what is not evil, while you persist in what is not indifferent but liable to censure. That is why they turned aside after Satan: because they did not know how to be widows well. Do you wish to learn what a widow is, and what the dignity of a widow is? Hear Paul saying, “If she has washed [the saints' feet], if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has devoted herself to every good work.” For when, after your husband's death, you are surrounded with a great mass of wealth, it is no wonder that you cannot bear widowhood. Transfer this wealth, then, to heaven, and the burden of widowhood will be bearable to you. “What then,” she says, “if I have children, heirs of their father's estate?” Train them too to despise money; transfer what is yours to heaven, allotting to them as much as is sufficient; train them too to be above money. “What then,” she says, “if a crowd of slaves streams around me? If there is a swarm of business, gold, silver? How shall I be able to guard it all, when I need a husband's protection?” This is an excuse and a pretext; and this is clear from many things. For if you do not desire money, and do not wish to make what you have more, the burden is light for you; acquiring is much more burdensome than guarding. If, then, you cut out this one thing, the acquiring, and supply the needy from what is there, God will hold his hand over you as a shield; and if you truly say these things as guardian of the orphans' inheritance, and do not hold it out of love of money under this pretext, he who searches the hearts knows how to make their wealth secure, he himself who commanded you to bring up children. For it is not possible, it is not possible, for a house rooted in almsgiving to suffer anything terrible; and even if it suffers for a time, it will end in good. This will be more to the whole house than shield and spear. Hear what the devil says about Job: “Have you not fenced in his inner and outer possessions?” Why? Hear Job himself saying, “I was an eye to the blind,” he says, “a foot to the lame, a father to the orphans.” As one who does not cut himself off from the calamities of others will never suffer anything in misfortunes of his own, since he learns in sharing their pain, so one who will not bear the grief that comes from sympathy will come to know all these things in his own affairs. And as in the body, when the foot is festering, the hand, if it does not feel for it and cleanse the wound and apply a remedy and wash off the discharge, will suffer the same in its own misfortunes, and the hand that would not serve another while it was free of the disease will itself become subject to it (for the evil will creep from there and come to it too, and its concern will no longer be about service but about healing and release), so too here: one who will not suffer with others will himself be pained. “You have fenced in,” he says, “his inner and outer possessions,” and I dare not approach. “But he suffered terrible things,” someone says. But those terrible things became the cause of many good things: his property was doubled, his reward was greater, his righteousness more, his crowns brilliant, his prizes shining; both his spiritual and his worldly goods increased. He lost children? But he received others—not the same ones, but others in their place—and those he kept safe for the resurrection. If he had received the same ones back, the number would have been less for him; but as it is, God gave others in their place, and he will present those too at the resurrection. All this came to him from his readiness to give alms. Let us do the same, so that we may obtain the same good things, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

“But know this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boasters, arro[gant … reckless], conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lo[vers of God …].” If anyone is vexed now at the heretics, let him consider that such things have happened from the beginning, since the devil has always set falsehood up beside the truth. God promised good things from the beginning; the devil also came with promises. God planted paradise; the devil deceived, saying, “You will be like gods.” For since he could show nothing by deeds, he promises greater things in words; deceivers are like that. After this there were Cain and Abel, then the sons of Seth and the daughters of men, then Ham and Japheth, Abraham and Pharaoh, Jacob and Esau; and so it goes on to the end: Moses and the magicians, the prophets and the false prophets, the apostles and the false apostles, Christ and the antichrist. So it was before, and so it was then. There was Theudas, there was Simon, when there were the apostles, and these people around Hermogenes and Philetus. There is no time, then, when falsehood has not stood beside the truth. Let us not, then, be vexed; these things were foretold from of old. That is why he said, “Know that in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, boasters, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, without natural affection.” So the ungrateful man is unholy—and rightly so. For one who is ungrateful toward his benefactor, what would he ever be toward others? The ungrateful man is implacable; the ungrateful man is without natural affection. “Slanderers,” he says; that is, evil-speakers. For those who are conscious of no good in themselves, as though they found some consolation in blackening the reputations of others, commit countless offences and sins. “Without self-control”: of tongue and belly and everything else. “Savage.” From this comes cruelty, from this comes harshness, when someone is a lover of money, when someone is a lover of self, when … “Traitors”: of friendship. “Reckless, [conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of] God, having a form of godliness, but having denied its power.” And writing to the Romans he says something like this: “having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law.” But there he puts it down as praise, while here he shows this to be a sin more grievous than all the other failings. Why? Because he did not take the word in the same sense. For just as he often takes “image” to mean likeness, but often to mean what is lifeless and worthless—as he himself says, writing to the Corinthians, “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God,” and the prophet, “Surely man walks about as an image”—and as Scripture takes the lion sometimes for what is kingly—“He lay down,” it says, “as a lion, and as a lion's whelp; who will rouse him?”—and sometimes for what is rapacious—“as a lion ravening and roaring”—so we too do the same. For since things are composite and varied, they are naturally used for many images and examples. For instance, when we wish to admire a beautiful woman, we compare her to paintings; and when we wish to admire painted women, we say that they speak, that they utter sounds. But we are not doing the same thing: in the one case it is because the painting has come close to likeness, in the other because the woman is close to beauty. So too with “form”: there it means a type and image and teaching and archetype of godliness; here it indicates something lifeless and dead, a mere shape and outline and pretence. So faith without works is a mere shape without power—and rightly so. For like a beautiful and blooming body that has no strength but resembles painted figures, so is right faith without works. For suppose someone is a lover of money, a traitor, reckless, and then believes rightly: what is the gain, if he has none of the things that befit a Christian? When he does none of the things that mark out godliness, but outstrips the Greeks in ungodliness? When he is a ruin to those around him? When he causes God to be blasphemed? When he discredits the doctrine by his works? “And avoid these,” he says. If, then, such people will exist in the later times, how does he say, “And avoid these”? It is likely that even then there were some such people, if not in the extreme form, yet they existed; and in truth he exhorts everyone through Timothy to turn away from such. “For among these,” he says, “are those who creep into houses and take captive silly women laden with sins, led away by various desires, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Do you see them using the ancient deceit, the weapon the devil used against Adam? “Creeping into houses,” he says. Do you see how by saying “creeping in” he showed their shamelessness, their dishonour, their deceit, their flattery? “And taking captive silly women.” So whoever is easily deceived is a “silly woman” and far from being a man. Being deceived belongs to women, or rather not even to women, but to silly women … from their sins, from being conscious of no good in themselves. And he said very aptly “laden”: for by this he presents the multitude of their sins, and their disorder and confusion. “Led away by various desires.” He did not accuse their nature; for he did not simply say “women,” but women of a certain kind. What does “various” mean? Here he hinted at much: luxury, indecency, lust. “By various desires,” he says, that is, for money, glory, luxury, self-will, honour. Perhaps he is also hinting at other, shameful desires. “Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Why does he say this? Not to excuse them, but rather to threaten them severely. For since they had buried themselves in those desires and sins, their mind was hardened. “Just as [Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses], so these too oppose the truth.” Who are these magicians in Moses' time? And how is it that their names are not given anywhere else? Either they were handed down unwritten, or it is likely that Paul knew them from the Spirit. “So these too,” he says, “oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, disqualified regarding the faith; but they will not advance further, for their folly will be plain to all, as theirs was.” “But they will not advance,” he says. How then does he say elsewhere, “They will advance further in ungodliness,” but here, “They will not advance”? There he means that once they begin to innovate and lead astray, they will not stop in their error, but will always invent new deceits and corrupt doctrines; for error stops nowhere. But here he means that they will not deceive or carry people off, even if at the beginning they seem to lead some astray, but will quickly be found out. That this is what he means, hear what he says: “For their folly will be plain to all.” How? From every side. “As theirs was.” For even if error blooms at first, it does not last to the end. Such are the things that are not good by nature but only seem good: they bloom for a time, and are found out, and perish. But our things are not such—and you are a witness of them; for our things are not founded on deceit; for who would choose even to die for a deceit? “But you have followed my teaching.” So be strong; for you were not simply present, but have followed closely. Here, by saying, “You have followed my teaching,” he indicates that a long time had passed. This concerns his word. “My conduct”: this concerns his life. “My purpose”: this concerns his eagerness and the resolve of his soul. I did not say these things and fail to do them, he says, nor did I practise philosophy in words only. “My faith, my patience”: how none of these things troubled me, he says. “My love,” which these men did not have. “My endurance,” which they did not have either. “My patience,” he says: I showed great patience toward the heretics. “My endurance”: toward the persecutions. “My persecutions, my sufferings.” For these two things trouble the teacher: that the heretics are many, and that people do not hold out under sufferings. But nevertheless he has spoken at length about these: that they existed of old and will exist, and no time is free of them; that they will be able to do us no harm; and that in the world there are vessels of gold and silver. Do you see him now speaking about afflictions? “What happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra.” Why did he mention only these out of many? Because the others were known to Timothy; and perhaps he mentions these as recent, not those of long ago; and he does not list them in detail, for he is not vainglorious or ambitious; he speaks to console the disciple, not to show off. By Antioch he means here Antioch in Pisidia, and Lystra, which was Timothy's home town. “What persecutions I endured.” Both are for encouragement: that I too showed noble eagerness and was not abandoned; one cannot say that God betrayed me; rather, he made my crown more brilliant. “What persecutions I endured,” he says, “and from them all the Lord rescued me. And all who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

Why do I speak about myself at all, he says? Everyone who wishes to live godly will be persecuted. By persecutions here he means afflictions and pains. For it is not possible for a man travelling the road of virtue to be without grief, affliction, pain and trials. How could he be, when he travels the narrow and hard-pressed road, when he has heard, “In the world you will have affliction”? If in that ancient time Job said, “The life of man on earth is a trial,” how much more then? “But wicked men and impostors,” he says, “will advance to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Let none of these things trouble you, he says, if they are in prosperity and you in trials; such is the nature of the matter. From my own case you can learn that it is not possible for a man fighting the wicked not to be in affliction. One who boxes cannot live in luxury; one who wrestles cannot feast. Let none of those in the contest, then, look for ease, none for good cheer. Again, the present is a contest, a war, affliction, distress, trial, the stadium of the contests. The times of ease are different; this is the time of sweat, this the time of labours. No one who has stripped and oiled himself looks for ease. And if you are looking for ease, why did you strip? Why did you raise your hands? “And how am I not raising them now?” someone says. When you do not master your desires, when you do not fight against the violence of nature. “But you, continue in what you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you have known the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” What is this? As the prophet David advised, saying, “Do not envy evildoers,” so he too advises, saying, “But you, continue in what you have learned and been assured of.” Not simply “you have learned,” but also “been assured of,” that is, you have believed. And what have I believed? That this is life. Even if, then, you see here things contrary to what you have believed, do not be troubled, since Abraham too saw things contrary, but suffered nothing: he heard, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named,” and was ordered to slaughter Isaac, and he was not troubled or disturbed. Let no one be scandalized at the wicked; Scripture said this from of old. What, then, when the good also rejoice and the wicked are punished? The one is likely to happen, but the other no longer; for it is possible for the wicked to be punished, but not for the good always to rejoice. No one was equal to Paul, yet he spent all his time in affliction, in tears, in groans night and day. “For with tears [I did not] cease”; and again, “the pressure on me every day,” he says. He did not rejoice today and grieve tomorrow, but every day, without a break. How then does he say, “Wicked men will advance to worse”? He did not say that they obtain ease, but “they will advance to worse”: this advance is toward the worse. He did not say, “They will be in prosperity.” And if they are punished, they are punished so that you may not think that sins go unpunished. For since hell is not strong enough to keep us from wickedness, he spares us and wakes us up and rouses us. If no wicked man were punished, no one would have thought that God watches over human affairs; if all were punished, no one would have expected [the judgment] to come. That is why he both punishes and does not punish; that is why the righteous are afflicted here: because they are sojourners, because they are strangers, because they are in a foreign land. The righteous, then, endure these things for their testing; for hear God saying to Job, “Do you think I have dealt with you for any other reason than that you might be shown to be righteous?” But sinners, if they ever endure anything of the kind, pay the penalty for their sins. In all things, then, let us give thanks to God, whether it is so or otherwise; for both are useful. He does nothing to us from hatred or aversion, but both from care and concern. “Knowing,” he says, “that from infancy you have known the sacred writings”: that is, from your earliest age you learned the sacred writings. He calls the divine Scriptures “sacred writings.” In these you were brought up, so that through them your faith ought to be firm and suffer no harm. For the root lies deep, nourished for a long time; nothing can turn it aside. Having said, “the sacred writings,” he added, “which are able to make you wise,” that is, they do not let you suffer anything foolish, as the many do …

For whoever knows the Scriptures as one ought to know them is scandalized by nothing that happens, but bears everything nobly, entrusting some things to faith and to the incomprehensibility of God's dispensation, while of others he knows the reasons and finds examples in the Scriptures. Indeed, not prying into everything and not wishing to know everything is a great proof of knowledge. And if you wish, I will put it by an example. Suppose there is a river, or rather suppose there are rivers (I do not say this as a hypothesis, but as rivers really are): they are not all equal in depth; some have a shallower bed, others a deep one, able to drown one who does not know it; and here there are whirlpools, there none. Not wishing to attempt every place alike, then, is good, and not wishing to know all the depths is no small proof of knowledge; for the one who wishes to venture on every part of the river is the very one who least knows the character of rivers, and he will often perish, venturing on the deep with the same boldness with which he crossed the shallow. So too with God: the one who wishes to know everything and ventures on everything is the one who least of all knows what God is. But in rivers the greater part is safe, and the whirlpools and depths are few; with God the greater part is hidden, and his works cannot be traced out. Why, then, do you force yourself to drown? Know this only: that God orders all things, that he provides for all things, that we are free, that some things he works and others he permits, that he wishes nothing evil to happen, that not everything happens by his will but also by ours, that all evils come from our will alone, all good things from both our will and his aid, that nothing escapes him. That is why he works all things. Then, knowing this, reckon up which things are good, which evil, and which indifferent: for instance, virtue is good, wickedness evil; wealth, poverty, life, death are indifferent. If you know these things, you will know with them that the righteous are afflicted so that they may be crowned, and sinners so that they may pay the penalty for their sins. But not all sinners pay the penalty here, so that the many may not disbelieve in the resurrection; just as not all the righteous are afflicted, so that you may not think wickedness praiseworthy rather than virtue. These are rules and boundaries; bring whatever you wish to them, and you will not be at a loss. For as among teachers of arithmetic there is the number six thousand, and everything is brought under it, and one can divide and multiply everything by the rule of six thousand, and everything turns on this number—all who have learned their letters know this—so whoever knows these rules, which I will state again more briefly, is never scandalized. What, then, are they? That virtue is good; that wickedness is bad; that diseases, poverty, plots, false accusations and the like are indifferent; that the righteous are afflicted here, and if some are well off, it is so that virtue may not seem hateful; that … (As for rivers, not all are equal …, some having a shallower bed, others so deep as to be able to drown one who does not know them, and here there are whirlpools, there none; so too among the questions about God, some are such that they present the solution at once to those who seek it, others so ineffable and hidden that they even destroy those who strive to learn something too curiously; just as, then, not …) the wicked rejoice here so that they may be punished there; and if some of them are punished, it is so that wickedness may not seem good nor its deeds go unpunished; that not all are punished, so that the time of the resurrection may not be disbelieved; that among the good there are some who have bad deeds, and they lay them down here, and among the wicked some who have good deeds, and they receive their reward here, so that they may be punished there; that most of God's works are incomprehensible; that the distance between us and him is great, more than can be told. If we reckon up these things, nothing will be able to trouble us. If we listen to the Scriptures continually, we shall find many such examples too. “Which are able,” he says, “to make you wise for salvation.” For the Scriptures set out both what is to be done and what is not to be done. Hear this blessed man saying elsewhere, “You are confident that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants.” Do you see that the law is a light to those in darkness? And if the one who shows the letter—the letter that kills—is a light, what then is the one who shows the Spirit that gives life? If the Old is light, what is the New, in which so much has been unveiled, and where the difference is as great as if one were to show heaven to those who know nothing beyond the earth? … We have learned about hell, about the kingdom, about the judgment. Let us not believe in things without reason: all those things are sorcery. “What then,” someone says, “when they foretell something and it comes about?” It is because you believe, if indeed it does come about. Whoever has taken a captive is master of his life, and manages it as he wishes. Tell me, if a robber chief held in his hands and power a king's son who had fled to him and had come to love the wilderness and living with him, would he be able to tell him whether he will die or live? Yes, very well. Why? Not because he foreknows the future, but because he has become master of both, of destroying the boy and of saving him, since the boy made him master. For he will be able to kill him if he wishes, and equally able to let him go if he chooses; for the boy has come under his power. If he says, “You will be rich” or “poor,” he is master of both. The greater part of the world has given itself into the devil's hands.

And besides, once a man has grown used to believing, no one pays attention to their failures, but only to the times they happen to succeed. If they have any power of foreknowledge, bring them to me, a believer. I do not say this boastfully; for being free of these things is no matter for boasting. I am full of sins; but in this respect I will not be humbled: by God's grace I laugh at them all. Bring me the man, the magician: if he has any power of foreknowledge, let him tell what will happen to me, what will happen to me tomorrow. But he will not tell it; for I am under the authority of the King, and he has no rule over me and I am not subject to him; I am far from his dens and caves; I serve as a soldier of the King. “But so-and-so stole,” he says, “and so-and-so informed against him.” In the first place this is not true in every case, but is a joke and a lie; for they know nothing. And if they knew anything, they ought rather to have told their own affairs: how the many offerings of the idols were stolen, how so much gold was melted down. Why did they not foretell these things to their priests? So they know nothing. Even concerning money they could tell nothing when their idol temples were burned and many perished with them. Why do they not look after their own safety? No, the thing is mere chance, if ever they happen to foretell something. We have prophets, but they do not fail; they do not tell one thing truly and lie about another, but they are true in everything; for this is foreknowledge. Stop your madness at last, I beg you, if indeed you believe in Christ; and if you do not believe, why do you disgrace yourselves, why do you deceive? “How long will you limp on both your hams?” For why do you go to them? Why do you ask them? As soon as you went, as soon as you asked, you made yourself their slave; for you ask as one who believes. “No,” he says, “I do not believe that he tells the truth; I am testing him.” But testing whether he tells the truth is not the mark of one persuaded that he lies, but of one who still doubts. Why, then, do you ask what will happen? If he says, “This will happen; do this and you will escape,” you ought not even then to practise idolatry again; but the madness would not be so great. But if they foretell what is to come, the one who has learned it gains nothing but needless grief; for the thing does not happen, but he has endured the grief and wasted himself away. If this were profitable, God would not have grudged it to us; he who told us the things in heaven would not have begrudged it. For he says, “I have made known to you everything, and all that I heard from my Father I have declared to you”; and, “I no longer call you servants, but friends; you are my friends.” Why, then, did he not make these things known to us? Because he wishes us to take no account of them. For it is not that he grudges them: these things were told to the people of old, about an ass and some other matters, because they were infants; but to us, since he wishes us to have no concern about them, he did not even take the trouble of making them known. But what do we learn? What they did not learn; for all those things are small. What we have learned is this: that we rise again, that we shall be immortal, that we shall be incorruptible, that the life to come has no end, that all things will pass away, that we shall be caught up in the clouds, that the wicked will pay a penalty, and countless other things besides, and none of it is a lie. Is it not much better to know these things than that the ass that was lost has been found? Look, you have found it: what is the gain? Will you not lose it again in another way? For even if it does not leave you, you will leave it at your death; but the things that I have spoken of, if we wish to hold them, we have forever. Let us, then, pursue those things; let us hold to the things that remain, that are firm. Let us not pay attention to diviners, nor to oracle-mongers, nor to charlatans, but to God, who knows all things clearly, who has the knowledge of all; and so we shall know everything that we ought to know, and obtain all the good things.

“All Scripture is inspired by God and [profitable for] teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, [equipped] for every [good] work.” Having given much encouragement and consolation from every source, he adds also the consolation from the Scriptures, which is more complete; and with good reason he gives so much encouragement, since he was about to say something great and painful. For if Elisha, who was with his teacher to his last breath and saw him taken away in a manner of death, tore his clothes, what do you think this man suffered, who was so loved and so loving, when he heard that his teacher was about to die, and that he had not even enjoyed his company in the time near his death, which above all things usually grieves people? For we are not so grateful for the time that is past, if we are left out of the time near the death of those who die. That is why, after giving much encouragement, he then speaks of his own death; and not simply, but he uses words able to console him and fill him with joy, so that the thing would be thought a sacrifice rather than a death, or rather a journey abroad—as indeed it was—and a removal to better things. “For I am already being poured out,” he says. That is why he wrote, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction.” All—which? The Scripture of which I spoke, he says, all that is sacred: the Scripture he was speaking of, of which he said, “From infancy you have known the sacred writings.” All such Scripture, then, is inspired by God. So doubt nothing, he says. “And profitable for … that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” “For teaching”: if there is anything we need to learn, or anything we need to be ignorant of, we shall know it from there; if we need to refute falsehoods, this too from there; if we need to be corrected and brought to our senses, for encouragement, for consolation, he says. “For correction”: that is, if anything is lacking and needs to be added. “That the man of God may be complete.” This is why, he says, the encouragement of the Scriptures was given: that the man of God may be complete. So it is not possible to become complete without it. In my place, he says, you have the Scriptures; if you wish to learn anything, you will be able to learn it from them. And if he wrote this to Timothy, who was filled with the Spirit, how much more does it apply to us? “Equipped for every good work.” Not simply sharing in it, he says, but with exactness … “I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead.” He means either sinners and righteous, or both those who have departed and those now living, since many will be left alive. He made him afraid in the former letter too, saying, “I charge you before God, who gives life to all things”; but here he has set down something more fearful: “who is to judge the living and the dead,” that is, who is to demand an account. “By his appearing and his kingdom.” To judge—when? “At his appearing,” the appearing with glory, with the kingdom. He means either this, that he will not come as he did now, or that … “I charge you by his appearing and his kingdom.” He calls him as witness, showing that he had reminded him of this too. Then, teaching how one must preach the word: “[Preach the word; be ready] in season, [out of season; reprove, rebuke,] exhort with all patience and teaching.” What does “in season, out of season” mean? That is: do not keep to a fixed time; let it always be the time for you; not only in peace, not only in security, nor only when sitting in church; even in dangers, even if you are in prison, even if you wear a chain, even if you are about to go out to death, at that very moment reprove; do not shrink from rebuking. For the rebuke too has its proper time then, when the reproof has gone before, when the deed has been proved. “Exhort,” he says. As with doctors: having shown the wound, he applied the knife, then added the remedy; and if any of these is left out, the rest becomes useless. For if you rebuke without proofs, you will seem rash, and no one will put up with it; but after the proof has been given, a man accepts the rebuke too, while before it he will be insolent. And if you reprove and rebuke, and vehemently, but do not add exhortation, again everything is overturned. For reproof by itself is unbearable when it does not have exhortation mixed in with it. As with the knife: though it saves, if there are not many things to soothe the pain, the sick man will not bear being cut and lanced; so it is here too. “And with all patience,” he says, “and teaching.” For the one who reproves needs patience, so as not to believe a charge too readily, and the rebuke needs exhortation, so as to be accepted. What is it that he adds to patience when he says, “and teaching”? Not as one who is angry, not as one who hates, not as one who tramples on another, not as one who has found an enemy—let all these things be put away; but how? As one who loves, as one who shares the pain, as one who mourns more than the other does, as one who is wasting away over the other's troubles. “With all patience,” he says, “and teaching,” not with an ordinary patience. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound teaching” … all of them; that is why he said, “in season and out of season”: do everything so as to have them as willing disciples. “But according to their own desires,” he says, “they will heap up teachers for themselves.”

Nothing is more expressive than this word; for by “heap up” he showed the indiscriminate crowd of teachers, and by … teachers, “having itching ears”: looking for teachers who speak to give pleasure and who delight the ear. “And they will turn away their ears from the truth and turn aside to myths.” He foretells these things not because he wishes to throw him into despondency, but so that when it happens he may bear it nobly; as Christ too did, saying, “They will hand you over, and scourge you, and lead you into the synagogues for my name's sake.” And elsewhere too this blessed man says, “For I know this, that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.” He said these things so that they might be sober, so that they might use the present time as they ought. “But you,” he says, “be sober in all things; endure suffering.” Do you see that this is why he foretells these things? For Christ too said near the end, “There will be false christs and false prophets”; so this man too said these things when he was about to depart. “But you, be sober in all things. Endure suffering”: that is, toil, take precautions; before that ruin comes, put the sheep in safety; until the wolves are present, endure suffering everywhere. “Do the work [of an evangelist].” So this is the work of an evangelist: to endure suffering both from himself and from those outside. “Fulfil your ministry,” that is, fill it up. Here is another necessity for enduring suffering: “For I am already being poured out,” he says, “and the time of my departure has come.” He did not say, “of my sacrifice,” but something more. For of a sacrifice not all is offered up to God, but of a libation the whole. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” Often, taking the apostle in hand and examining this passage, I remained perplexed as to why Paul speaks so grandly, saying, “I have fought the good fight.” But now I think I have found the reason, by God's grace. Why, then, does he say these things? He wishes to console the disciple's despondency, bidding him take courage, since Paul is going to receive a crown, since he has accomplished everything … one must rejoice, he says, not grieve. Why? “I have fought the good fight.” It is as if a father were to console his child sitting beside him and unable to bear being orphaned, saying, “Child, do not weep; we have lived well; we have reached old age and are leaving you; our life has been blameless; we depart with glory; you too can be admired for what we have done; the emperor owes us many favours.” As if he said, “We have set up trophies, [we have defeated] the enemies …”: [so Paul consoles] the child, and by these praises trains him to bear lightly what has happened, to have good hopes, and not to think the thing a burden. For separation is terrible, terrible; hear him saying, “But we, having been orphaned from you for a short time, in presence, not in heart.” If, then, he himself suffered such things when separated from his disciples, what do you think Timothy suffered? If Timothy wept when separated from him while he lived, so that Paul says, “remembering your tears, that I may be filled with joy,” how much more when he died? He wrote these things, then, to console him; and the whole letter is full of consolation, and is like a kind of testament. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course,” he says, “I have kept the faith.” “The good fight,” he says. So you too must lay hold of it. Where there is a chain, where there are bonds, where there is death, is this a good fight? Yes, he says, for it is fought for Christ; it has great crowns. “The good fight.” Nothing is better than this contest, whose end is this crown. It is not made of wild olive; it does not have a man as president of the games, nor men as spectators: the theatre is made up of angels. There, men labour and toil many days, and receive the crown in one hour, and at once the pleasure flies away; but here it is not so: it is forever in splendour, in glory, in honour. So one must rejoice; for I am going to my rest; I am leaving the stadium. You have heard that “to depart and be with Christ is better.” “I have finished the course.” For one must both contend and run: contend by enduring afflictions, and run, not aimlessly, but toward something useful. Truly good is the contest that does not merely delight the spectator but benefits him; and the course that does not lead to nothing, nor is a display of strength and ambition, but draws everyone to heaven. This course that Paul ran on earth is purer than the one the sun runs in heaven. How? … beginning from Galilee and from Arabia, and coming to the ends of the earth: “so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum,” he says, “I have fully preached the gospel of Christ”; and running through the whole world like a bird, or rather faster than a bird; for a bird simply flies through, but he did not simply fly, but had the wing of the Spirit and cut his way through countless obstacles: deaths, plots, calamities. So he was swifter even than a bird. If he had been simply a bird, he would have been brought down and caught; but since he was lifted up by the Spirit, he flew above all the nets, like a bird with wings of fire. “I have kept the faith,” he says. For there were many things that wished to rob him of it: not only human friendships, but also threats and deaths and countless other things. But he stood firm against them all. How? By being sober and watchful. These things, then, are enough to console the disciples; but he also adds the prizes. What are they? “From now on,” he says, “there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” Here again he calls virtue in general righteousness. So one must not grieve, he says, because I am going away to be crowned with the crown that Christ places on my head. If I were to remain here, then rather one ought to grieve and to fear that I might fall away, that I might perish. “Which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

Here he raised Timothy up too. If the crown is given to all, much more to Timothy. But he did not say, “and to you,” but “to all,” showing that if to all, much more to him. How would one love the appearing of Christ? If one rejoices at his coming; and whoever rejoices at his coming does what is worthy of that joy: he will give up his possessions, if need be, and his life too, so as to obtain the good things to come, so as to be counted worthy to see the second coming in fitting array, with boldness, with glory and splendour. This is what it is to love his appearing. Whoever loves his appearing will do everything so that, even before that general appearing, the particular one may come to him. “And how is this possible?” someone says. Hear Christ saying, “Whoever loves me will keep my commandments, and I and the Father will come and make our dwelling with him.” Consider what it means that he who is going to appear to all in common promises to appear to us privately. “For we will come,” he says, “and make our dwelling with him.” If anyone loves his appearing, he will do everything to call him to himself and to keep him, so that the light may shine upon him. Let there be nothing unworthy of his presence, and he quickly comes to lodge with us. It is called an “appearing” because it shines forth from above and rises from on high. Let us, then, seek the things above, and we shall quickly draw those rays to ourselves. No one who stoops down and buries himself in the earth will be able to see the light of the sun; no one who defiles himself with the affairs of this life will be able to see the Sun of righteousness; he does not shine upon any of those who are taken up with these things. Come to your senses a little, come up from the deep, from the surge of this life, if you wish to see the sun, if you wish to obtain his appearing; if you obtain this appearing of his, then you will see him with great boldness. Practise wisdom now. Let there be in you no spirit of madness, so that darkness may not beat upon you, so that you may not dash your ship upon the rocks there; let there be no deceit, for hidden reefs cause the most grievous shipwrecks. Do not nourish wild beasts—I mean the passions; for they are worse than wild beasts. Do not trust in things that flow away, so that you may be able to stand firm. No one stands on water, but on rock everyone stands securely. The affairs of this life are water: “The waters have come in,” it says, “even to my soul,” like a torrent flowing past. Spiritual things are rock: “On a rock,” it says, “you have set my feet.” The affairs of this life are mire and mud; let us draw ourselves up out of them; for so we shall be able to obtain the appearing of Christ. Whatever comes upon us, let us bear it; suffering for Christ is sufficient consolation in everything; let us repeat this divine charm, and the pain of the wound will cease. “And how is it possible to suffer for Christ?” someone says. Someone has slandered you, not for Christ's sake at all? If you bear it nobly, if you give thanks, if you pray for him, you are doing all this for Christ. But if you curse him … even if you cannot do it, it is not for Christ; you have suffered a loss and have been deprived of the fruit because of your own choice. For it is in our power both to gain from terrible things and to be harmed by them; this does not come from the nature of the terrible things, but from our own choice. I mean something like this. Job suffered so much and bore it with thanksgiving … not because he suffered, but because, having suffered, he bore it with thanksgiving. Another suffers the same things—or rather, not the same (for no one has suffered such things, but far less)—and he blasphemes, curses the whole world, is indignant against God: this man is condemned and sentenced, not because he suffered, not because of the necessity of what befell him. For if the necessity of what befell him had caused this, Job too would have had to blaspheme; but if Job, though he suffered harder things, did nothing of the kind, the other's fall did not come from this, but from the weakness of his will. We need, then, a strong soul, and nothing will seem hard to us; just as, when the soul is weak, there is nothing that does not seem hard. It is our disposition that makes everything either bearable or unbearable; let us fortify it, and we shall bear everything easily. For a tree, when it sends its root down deep, cannot be shaken even by a violent storm; but if it lies on the surface, above the ground, even a small gust of wind falling on it tears it up by the root. So it is with us too: if we nail down our flesh with the fear of God, nothing will be able to shake us; but if we simply set ourselves on the surface, even a small gust has destroyed and ruined us. Therefore I beg you to bear everything with great eagerness, and to imitate the prophet who says, “My soul has clung to you.” See what he says: “My soul has clung.” He did not simply say, “drew near,” but “clung.” And again, “My soul has thirsted for you.” He did not simply say, “longed,” but “thirsted,” so as to show by these words the intensity of his longing. And again, “Nail down my flesh with the fear of you.” For God wishes us always to cling to him and to be bound to him in such a way that we never depart from him. If we hold to God in this way, if we nail our minds to him, if we thirst with longing for him, everything we wish for will be ours, and we shall obtain the good things to come, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom be glory, might and honour to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.

“Do your best to come to me quickly. For Demas has deserted me, having loved the present age, and has gone to Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, above all the parchments.” It is worth asking how he calls Timothy to himself, when Timothy had been entrusted with a church and a whole nation. It was not presumption; for Paul himself had been ready to go to him: hear him saying, “But if I delay, that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.” Why, then? He was held fast by great constraint and was no longer free to travel; he lived in prison, shut up by Nero, and was about to die very soon. So, lest this happen before he saw his disciple, he calls him, longing to see him before his death, and perhaps to entrust many things to him. That is why he says, “Do your best to come to me before winter. For Demas has deserted me, having loved the present age.” And he does not say, “so that I may see you before I depart this life,” which would most have grieved him; but, “Since I am alone,” he says, “I have no one to help me. For Demas has deserted me, having loved the present age, and has gone to Thessalonica.” That is, being in love with ease, with freedom from danger and with safety, he chose rather to live in comfort at home than to suffer hardship with me and help me bear the present dangers. He blamed him alone, not because he wished to blame him, but to strengthen us, so that we may not grow soft in dangers or in labours; for this is what “having loved the present age” means; and at the same time he wished to draw the disciple to him. “Crescens,” he says, “to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.” These he no longer blames; for Titus was one of the most admirable, so that Paul entrusted to him the affairs of the island—an island not small but very large: I mean Crete. “Luke alone is with me.” For he kept close to him inseparably, he who wrote the gospel and the general Acts, a man industrious, eager to learn and persevering. Of him Paul says in his writing, “whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches.” “Get Mark and bring him with you.” Why? “For he is useful to me for ministry.” He does not mean for his own rest, but for the ministry of the gospel; for even in bonds he did not stop preaching. So he was calling Timothy too for this reason, not for his own sake but for the gospel's, so that no disturbance might arise among the believers at his death, with many of his disciples present and helping them to bear his death. For it is likely that those who had believed at Rome were men of note. “Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, above all the parchments.” By “cloak” (φελόνη) he means here the garment; but some say it is the case in which the books were kept. And what need had he of books, when he was about to depart to God? He needed them very much, so as to entrust them to the believers, that they might have them in place of his teaching. For it is likely that all the believers suffered a great blow at that time, and especially those who were present at his death and were enjoying his company then. He asks for the cloak so as not to need to receive one from someone else. For you see him taking great pains over this, and saying elsewhere, when he was speaking to those from Ephesus, “You know that these hands ministered to my needs and to those who were with me”; and again, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. The Lord will repay him according to his works.” Here again he mentions a trial, not simply because he wishes to blame or accuse that man, but to anoint the disciple for the contests, so that he may bear things nobly. Even if those who bring the trials are mean and worthless and dishonoured, one must bear everything nobly, he says. For one who suffers ill at the hands of a great man has no small distinction in the greatness of the one who does it; but one who suffers at the hands of a mean and outcast man has the greater pain. “He did me much harm,” that is, he afflicted me in various ways. But he will not get away with it unpunished, he says: “For the Lord will repay him according to his works.” As he said, writing above, “What persecutions I endured, and from them all the Lord rescued me,” so here too he encouraged the disciple in two ways: by his own suffering ill, and by that man's receiving his due; not as though the saints simply rejoiced at punishments, but because the preaching and the weaker brethren needed the consolation that comes from this. “Beware of him yourself,” he says, “for he strongly opposed our words.” That is, he fights and resists. And he did not say … none of these things, nor does he arm Timothy against him, but only bids him beware, leaving the punishment to God. And he said, “He will repay him,” for the consolation of the weaker; which is a prophecy rather than a curse. That he says these things to anoint the disciple is clear also from what follows. But see again how he recounts other trials of his: “At my first defence,” he says, “no one stood by me, but all deserted me; may it not [be counted] against them.”

Do you see how he spares his own people? And yet they had done a terrible thing. For it is not the same to be despised by outsiders and by one's own. Do you see how the discouragement is heightened? You cannot say, “I was attacked by outsiders, but I had the comfort of the care and support of my own”; for they too betrayed me. “All deserted me,” he says. So this is no small sin. For if in war the one who abandons a man in danger and withdraws himself from the enemy's hand is rightly struck down by his own side, as having ruined and betrayed everything, much more is it so in the preaching. What does he mean by his first defence? He had already stood before Nero and escaped; but when he instructed Nero's cupbearer in the faith, then Nero beheaded him. See, here again is encouragement for the disciple, in what follows: “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me.” For God does not let one who is abandoned by men suffer anything terrible. “And strengthened me,” he says: that is, he gave me boldness, he did not let me fall. “So that through me the preaching might be fully proclaimed,” that is, fulfilled. See his great humility. It was not as one worthy of the gift, he says, that he strengthened me, but so that the preaching … as if someone were carrying a purple robe and a diadem and were kept safe because of them. “And all the Gentiles might hear,” he says. What is this? So that both the splendour of the preaching and the care of providence for me might become plain to all, he says. “And I was rescued from the mouth of the lion; and the Lord will rescue me from every evil work.” See how near he came to death: he fell into the very throat of the lion. For he calls Nero a lion because of the savagery, strength and fearlessness of his rule. “And the Lord rescued me,” he says, “and will rescue me.” If he will rescue him again, how did he say, “I am already being poured out”? But attend to the wording. “I was rescued,” he says, “from the mouth of the lion”; and again, “He will rescue,” no longer from the mouth, but from what? “From every evil work.” For then he snatched me from the dangers; but since enough has been done for the gospel, he will rescue me again from every sin, that is, he will not let me depart under condemnation. For this too—being able to resist sin to the point of blood and not to give in—is to be rescued from another lion, the devil. So this salvation is greater than the first, even when he seems to have been handed over. “And he will save me for his heavenly kingdom; to him be the glory to the ages of ages. Amen.” So this is salvation: when we shine there. What does “He will save me for his kingdom” mean? He will snatch me out of every charge, he says, and keep me there. For this is to be saved for the kingdom: to die here for its sake. “For whoever hates his life in this world,” he says, “will keep it for eternal life.” “To him be the glory.” See, a doxology of the Son. “Greet Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus.” For Onesiphorus was there in Rome, as he says: “May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day.” By greeting his household he makes those in it more eager for such good deeds. “Greet,” he says, “Prisca and Aquila.” These are the people he mentions continually, with whom he also lodged, who took Apollos in. He puts the wife first, I think, as the more zealous and the more faithful; for she too then took Apollos in; or else he does this without any particular reason. And the mention was no small consolation to them, but showed honour and love and imparted much grace; for even a mere greeting from that holy and blessed man is enough to fill the one who receives it with much grace. “Erastus remained at Corinth, and Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.” Him and Tychicus we know from the book of Acts as men who went up with him from Judaea and were with him everywhere, perhaps as more zealous than the others. “Trophimus I left sick at Miletus,” he says. Why did you not heal him, instead of leaving him behind? The apostles could not do everything, or they did not dispense everything by grace, so that no one might think of them beyond what he sees. We see this happen also with the blessed righteous men before them, as with Moses: he was slow of speech; why did God not change his slowness? He was often cast down by grief and discouragement; he did not enter the land of promise. 3. For God permitted many things so that the weakness of human nature might be shown. For if, even when these things happened, the senseless Jews said, “Where is Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt?”, what would they not have done if he had also brought them into the land of promise? If he had not allowed the fear of Pharaoh to overcome him, would they not have thought him a god? So too with Paul and Barnabas, we see the inhabitants of Lystra being affected in this way and thinking them gods, when Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, crying out and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We too are men of like nature with you.” And again Peter, when he healed the man lame from birth and all were amazed at what had happened, answered, saying, “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” And hear again blessed Paul saying, “And a thorn was given me in the flesh, so that I might not be too elated.” “But,” someone says, “the words come from humility.” Far from it; this is not so. For the thorn was not given him so that he might be humble, nor did he say this from humility only, but for other reasons too. See, at any rate, how God, giving his reason, does not say to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, so that you may not be too elated,” but what? “For my power is made perfect in weakness.” Two things, then, came about together: what was done was shown plainly, and the whole was ascribed to God. That is why he also said elsewhere, “We have the treasure” in weak bodies. Why? “So that the surpassing power may belong to God, and not to us.” If the bodies were not subject to suffering, everything would have been ascribed to them. And elsewhere we see him grieved at an illness; for of Epaphroditus he said, “For he was indeed ill, near to death, but God had mercy on him.” And there were many other things they did not know, to the advantage both of Paul himself and of those he taught. “Trophimus,” he says, “I left sick at Miletus.” Miletus lies near Ephesus. Was this when he sailed for Judaea, or shall we say it was at some other time? For after being in Rome he went again to Spain; but whether he came from there to these parts again, we do not know. At any rate, we see him left alone by all: “[Demas] deserted me,” he says, “Crescens [to Galatia], Titus to Dalmatia; Erastus remained at Corinth; Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.” “Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus greets you, and Pudens and Linus and Claudia.” This Linus, some record, was the second bishop of the church of the Romans after Peter. “And Linus,” he says, “and Claudia.” Do you see how women too were fervent and warm in the faith? Such as Priscilla, such as this … And why, when there were so many believers, does he mention these women? Clearly because they had already departed in mind from worldly affairs, as being more illustrious; for it is not possible to be held back by being a woman. For this too is a work of God's grace, that this nature is held back only in the affairs of this life, or rather not even there. For the woman has received no small part of the whole administration, the care of the house; and without it not even public affairs could ever hold together. For if household affairs were full of turmoil and confusion, every man in public life would have to sit at home, and the affairs of the city would go badly. So she is not inferior in those matters, nor in spiritual things. For she can die ten thousand times if she wishes; many women, at any rate, have been martyred. She can practise chastity, even more than men, since she is not troubled by such a great flame, and she can show decorum and dignity, and holiness, “without which no one will see the Lord,” and contempt of money, if they wish, and in short all the other virtues. “Do your best,” he says, “to come before winter.” How he urges him on! And nowhere does he set down what is painful: he does not say, “before I die,” so as not to grieve him, but “to come before winter,” so that you may not be held back. “Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.” He does not mention them by name. Do you see that those others were more zealous? “The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.” Nothing is better than this prayer. Do not grieve, he says, that I am going away: the Lord is with you. And he did not say, “with you,” but “with your spirit.” The help is twofold: the grace of the Spirit, and God helping it. Besides, God cannot be with us unless the spiritual grace is there; for if we were abandoned by it, how would he be with us? “Grace be with us. Amen.” And he prays for himself too: that is, that we may always be pleasing to him, that we may have favour along with the gift; for when this is present, nothing will be painful. For as one who sees the king and has favour with him feels nothing painful, so even if we are deprived of our friends, even if we fall into something terrible, we shall feel nothing, while that grace is present and walls us around.

How, then, can one draw this grace to oneself? By doing what is dear to God and obeying him in everything. Or do we not see in great houses too that those servants have favour who do not care for their own affairs but for those of their masters, with all their soul and eagerness, and who arrange everything well not only because the master compels them but out of eagerness and affection? When they are always before their masters' eyes, when they busy themselves about the house, when they carry on no business of their own and do not care for their own affairs, but rather hold their masters' affairs in place of their own? For the servant who has made his master's affairs his own has not made his own affairs his master's, but his master's affairs his own: he gives orders in the master's affairs just as the master does, he rules just as he does. Many of the servants fear him more than the master, and whatever he says, the master says too; all his enemies are afraid of him from then on. And if in the affairs of this life the one who despised his own and chose his master's did not lose what was his, but rather obtained greater things, much more is it so in spiritual things. Despise what is yours, and you have received what is God's; he himself wishes this. Despise the earth, and seize the kingdom of heaven; live there, not here; be feared because of what is there, not because of what is here. If you are feared because of what is there, you will be fearful not only to people but also to demons and to the devil himself; but if because of the money here, you will be easily despised by them, and often by people too. Whatever riches you gain, you will be rich among slavish things; but if you disregard them, you will be illustrious in the royal house. Such were the apostles, who despised the slavish house and the money of this world. And see how they gave orders in their Master's affairs: “Let so-and-so be freed from disease,” he says, “another from demons; bind that one, and loose this one.” This was done on earth, but it was accomplished as in heaven. “For whatever you bind on earth,” he says, “will be bound in heaven.” And he gave them greater authority than his own. And to show that I have not spoken falsely, hear him saying, “Whoever believes in me will do greater works than I do.” Why? Because in this way too the honour passes to the Master. For in our affairs too, when the servant has great power, the master is admired the more. For if the servant can do so much, how much more the one who rules him? But if someone left his master's service and cared for his own wife and child and servant, and wanted to grow rich and to store up treasure there, either by stealing or by damaging his master's goods, he would quickly destroy himself along with the money. So, since we have these examples, I beg you, let us not take care of our possessions, so that we may take care of ourselves; let us despise them, so that we may possess them. If we despise them, God will take care of them; if we take care of them, God will despise them. Let us toil in God's affairs, not in our own—or rather, in our own; for his are ours. I do not mean heaven, I do not mean earth, I do not mean the things in the world; for these are unworthy of him; these belong not only to us but also to unbelievers. What, then, do I mean by his? Glory, the kingdom: these are both his and, through him, ours. How? “If we have died with him,” … we are called … Why do we drag ourselves down, when he draws us up to himself? How long shall we be poor, how long beggars? Heaven lies before us, and do we turn about the earth? The kingdom of heaven is offered, and do we choose the poverty of this world? Immortal life is offered, and do we spend ourselves on wood and stones and fields? Become rich—I too wish this; be greedy, and seize: here there is no blame; here not to be greedy is the charge, here not to seize is the accusation. What does this mean? “The kingdom of heaven,” it says, “suffers violence, and the violent seize it.” Be violent there, be a robber: what is seized there is not diminished. For virtue is not divided up, nor is godliness diminished, nor the kingdom of heaven. Virtue increases when you seize it; bodily things are diminished when you seize them. And this is clear from the following: suppose there are ten thousand men in a city; if they all seize virtue and righteousness, they have increased it, for among the ten thousand they all become righteous; but if …

Do you see that good things increase the more when they are seized, while these things decrease the more when they are seized? Let us not, then, sit beside our poverty, but choose wealth. God's wealth is that many enjoy the kingdom. “He is rich,” it says, “toward all, and upon all who call on him.” Increase his substance; and you will increase it if you seize, if you are greedy, if you use violence. There is truly need of violence. Why? Because many are those who hinder us: wives, children, cares, worldly affairs, and with these the demons and the very leader of the demons, the devil. There is need, then, of violence, need of endurance. The violent man is in labours. How? He endures everything and stands firm against necessity. How? He almost attempts the impossible. If, then, the violent are like this, while we do not even attempt what is possible, when shall we obtain the kingdom? When shall we enjoy what we strive for? “The violent,” it says, “seize the kingdom of heaven.” There is need of violence and of seizing; for it is not simply set before us, nor ready to hand. The one who seizes is always sober, awake; he thinks and is anxious how to make his seizure at the right moment. Do you not see in wars that the one who wishes to seize something stays awake the whole night and is armed the whole time? If, then, those who seize the things of this life stay awake at night and arm themselves, how is it that we, who wish to seize spiritual things, which need greater zeal than these, sleep and snore even by day, and remain always unarmed and naked? For one who goes about in sins is unarmed and naked, just as one who lives in righteousness is armed. We do not fence ourselves around with almsgiving; we do not … lamps burning for ourselves; we do not learn the road that leads there; we are not sober, we are not awake; that is why we can seize nothing. If someone wishes to attack a king, does he not first expose himself to ten thousand deaths? Does he not fortify himself, does he not practise warfare? Does he not do everything to this end, and so rush to the attack? But we do not act so; we want to seize while we sleep; and that is why we come away with empty hands … they flee, how they run, how they cut their way through everything! There is need of running; for at once the devil runs after you and orders those in front to stop you. But if you are strong, if you are awake, you kick one and push another away, and escape them all like a bird; and you get away from here, and pass beyond the marketplace and the great din, which is this life, and come to the heights beyond them, which is the age to come. For there, as in a wilderness, there is no din, no one to trouble you, no one to hold you back. Have you snatched it? Little effort is needed after the seizing, so that what has been taken may not be taken away. If we run, if we look at none of the things lying before our eyes, if we think of nothing else than escaping those who hinder us, we shall be able to keep what we have seized in safety. Have you seized self-control? Do not stay; flee; get far away from the devil. If he sees that he can no longer overtake you, he will not even pursue you. So we too, when we no longer see those who have snatched something, give up, and neither run after them ourselves nor urge others to stop them, but let them go. So you too run hard at the beginning. When you are far from the devil, he will no longer even make an attempt on you, but you will be in safety, enjoying the ineffable good things without fear. May we all obtain them, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom be glory, might, honour and worship to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.