Homilies on Acts 3.5

So if anyone ran after the episcopate as a charge of protecting others, no one would accept it quickly. But as it is, we pursue this office just as we pursue the offices outside. For so that we may be glorified, so that we may be honored among men, we are lost with God. What is the gain of the honor? How plainly it has been shown to be nothing! When you desire the priesthood, set against it hell, set against it the account to be rendered there, set against it the life free from public business, set against it the measure of punishment: that if you sin on your own account, you will suffer nothing of the kind; but if you sin as a priest, you are lost. Consider how much Moses endured, how much philosophy he showed, how many good deeds he displayed; and because he sinned one sin only, he was bitterly punished, and rightly. For this sin was committed with harm to the others; so that he was punished more bitterly, not because it became public, but also because he was a priest. For we do not pay the same penalty for sins committed openly and for those committed in secret. The sin is the same, but the harm is not the same; or rather not even the sin, for it is not the same thing to sin unnoticed and in hiding and to sin openly. But a bishop cannot sin in secret. It is well enough if he escapes accusations when he does not sin, let alone when he does. If he is angry, if he laughs, if he so much as dreams of relaxation, many are those who mock, many who are scandalized, many who lay down the law, many who remember the former bishops and run down the present one; and they do this not because they want to praise those … “War is sweet to those who have not tried it,” the saying goes. This is fitting to say now too; or rather, we say it before we enter the contest; but after we have entered, we are not even noticed by most. For we have no war now against those who oppress the poor, nor do we bear to fight in defense of the flock … Who shows such care for the flocks of Christ as Jacob showed for the flocks of Laban? Who can count the frosts of the night? Do not speak to me of the night vigils and all that service. Everything is the very opposite. Prefects and governors do not enjoy as much honor as the ruler of the church. If he enters the palace, who is first? If he is among women, or in the houses of the great, no one is honored before him. Everything is lost and corrupted. I do not say this wishing to put you to shame, but to check your desire. For with what conscience, if you become a bishop by canvassing, either yourself or through another, with what eyes will you look at the man who helped you? What defense will you have? For the man who was unwilling and forced, and did not want it, might have some defense, even if he too is wholly deprived of pardon; yet he has some defense on this account. Consider what Simon suffered. What does it matter if you do not give money, but instead of money you flatter, and contrive much, and scheme? “May your silver perish with you.” He said this to that man, and he will say it to these: “May your zeal perish with you, because you thought to acquire the gift of God by human canvassing.” But is there no one such? God forbid there should be. For I do not want anything that is said to apply to you; but now the sequence of the reading has led us into these words. For when we speak against greed, too, we are not speaking to you, nor even to any one person. May the medicines we prepare be prepared in vain! The prayers of physicians are of this kind: they ask nothing else than that, after much labor, the medicines may simply be thrown away. This is what we too pray: that our words may simply be spoken into the air, so that they are words only. I am ready to endure anything so as not to come into need of saying these things. If you wish, we will even be silent; only let the silence be without danger. For I do not think that anyone, however vainglorious, would wish to [speak so] when no need calls for it; for that teaching which is by deeds is the greater. Since even the best physicians, though the disease of the sick brings them their fees, would wish their friends to be in health. And we wish all to be in health. For we do not wish that we should be approved and you unapproved. I wish I could display to your very sight the love I have for you; then no one would blame me for anything, even if my word were very harsh. For what is said by friends, even if it is an insult, is bearable: “More trustworthy are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy.” Nothing is dearer to me than you, not even this light. For I would pray ten thousand times to be blinded myself, if by this I could turn your souls; so much sweeter to me than light itself is your salvation. For what profit are the sun's rays to me, when despondency on your account pours thick darkness over my eyes? For light is beautiful when it shines amid gladness; to a grieving soul it even seems a nuisance. That I am not lying—may you never come to know it by experience! But if it should ever happen that any of you sins, stand by me when I am asleep: may I perish if I am not like the paralyzed, like those out of their senses, and, as the prophetic word says, “And the light of my eyes, it also is not with me.” For what hope have I, if you do not advance? What despondency, if you do well? I seem to have wings when I hear something good about you. “Fill up my joy.” This alone I have brought to my prayer: that I desire your progress. What I contend for with all is this: that I love you, that I am bound up with you, that you are everything to me, father and mother and brothers and children. Do not then think that anything we say is said in hostility, but for your correction. “For a brother helped by a brother,” it says, “is like a strong city.” Do not then disdain it; for neither do I despise a word from you, but I would wish to be corrected by you, I would wish to learn. For we are all brothers, and one is our teacher. Yet among brothers too it happens that one commands and the others obey. Do not then disdain it, but let us do all things to the glory of God; for to him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.