Homilies on John 63.1–63.4

“Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha had met him. [When] the Jews who were with her [saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her],” and so on. A great good is the life of wisdom; I mean ours. For the things of those outside are only words and fables, and not even the fables have anything of wisdom; for everything among them is done for the sake of glory. A great good, then, is the life of wisdom, and it pays us its rewards even here. For one who despises money reaps the benefit already here, being freed from superfluous and useless cares; and one who tramples on glory already receives his wage here, being no one’s slave, but free with true freedom. One who [desires] heavenly things [thinks] present affairs [to be nothing], and easily masters all grief. See, at any rate, how this woman too, living wisely, received her reward here. For [while all were sitting around her grieving, she did not] wait for the teacher to come to her, nor did she stand on her dignity, nor was she held fast by her grief. For among their other miseries, women in mourning have this disease too, wishing to make a display before those present. But she suffered none of these things; as soon as she heard, she comes quickly to him. “Jesus had not yet come into the village.” [He walked slowly, so as not to seem to rush] to the sign, but to do it on being asked by them. Either, then, the evangelist wished to hint at this by saying, “She rose quickly,” or he shows that she ran so as to get ahead of him as he came. And she comes not alone, but drawing along with her the Jews who were in the house. Very wisely, then, did her sister call her secretly, so as not to disturb those who had gathered; and she did not tell the reason; for otherwise many would have gone away. But as it was, all followed her, thinking she was going to weep; and perhaps by this too it is confirmed again that Lazarus had died. “And she fell at his feet.” She was more fervent than her sister. She did not respect the crowd, nor the suspicion they had about him (for many of his enemies were there too, who even said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”), but she cast out everything human, now that the teacher was present, and was intent on one thing only, honoring the teacher. And what does she say? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” What then does Christ do? For the present he says nothing to her, nor does he say the things he said to her sister (for a great crowd was present, and it was not the time for those words); he only shows moderation and comes down to her level, and, confirming his human nature, weeps quietly, and puts off the sign for the present. For since the miracle was great, such as he seldom did, and many were going to believe through it, so that doing it without them might not offend the crowds and they might gain nothing from its greatness, he draws many witnesses by his condescension, so that he might not lose the catch; and shows proof of [his human nature: he weeps and is troubled]; for [grief] is wont to stir up mourning. Then, rebuking the emotion (for that is the meaning of “he was deeply moved in spirit”), he checked his agitation, and so asks, “Where have you laid him?”, so that the question might not be asked with lamentation. And why does he ask? He does not wish [to seem to do it of himself], but to learn and to act on being entreated, so as to free the sign from all suspicion. “They said to him, ‘Come and see.’ Jesus wept.” Do you see that as yet he had shown no sign of resurrection, nor does he go as one who will raise him, but as one who will weep? That he seemed to be going to mourn, not to raise, the Jews show, who said, “See how he loved him!” And some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” Not even in calamities did they relax their wickedness. And yet what he is about to do is much more wonderful. For to drive away death after it has come and prevailed is much [greater] than to stop it as it approaches. [But] they slander him [from the very things that showed] his power. For the present they acknowledge that he opened the eyes of the blind man; and when they ought to have admired him for that, from this they slander that too, as though it had not happened. Not from this only are they all shown to be corrupt, but also from the fact that, before he had come or shown anything, they anticipated with their accusations, not waiting for the outcome of the matter. Do you see how corrupt their judgment was?

So he comes to the tomb, and again rebukes the emotion. Why does the evangelist so carefully say again and again that he wept and that he was deeply moved? So that you may learn that he truly put on our nature. For since this evangelist is evidently saying great things about him more than the others, in bodily matters too he here speaks much more humbly. At any rate, about his death he said nothing of the kind that the others did, that he became very sorrowful, that he was in agony; but entirely the opposite, that he even threw them on their backs. So what was left out there he filled in here through the grief. For speaking about his death, he says, “I have authority to lay down my life,” and there he says nothing humble. For this reason the others attach much that is human to him in the passion, showing by this that the dispensation was real. And Matthew confirms it from the agony and the [trembling] and the sweat; but John from the grief. For if he had not been of our nature, he would not have been overcome by grief once and a second time. What then does Jesus do? He makes no defense to them about the charges; for why should he silence them with words when they were about to suffer this at once through deeds, which was less burdensome and more able to put them to shame? But he says, “Take away the stone.” And why did he not call him and make him stand before him while absent? Or rather, why did he not make him rise while the stone still lay on him? For one who was able to move a dead body by his voice and show it alive again could much more have moved a stone by the same voice; one who [made] the man bound with grave-bands [walk] could much more have moved a stone. Why do I say this? Even while absent he would have done it. Why then did he not do so? To make them witnesses of the miracle, so that they might not say what they said in the case of the blind man, “This is he; this is not he.” For their hands and their coming to the tomb testified that it was he. So if they had not come, they would even have thought it an apparition, or that they saw one man in place of another. But as it is, coming to the place, and taking away the stone, and being commanded to loose the dead man, swathed as he was, from his bonds, and his friends who had carried him out of the tomb recognizing from the grave-cloths that it was he, and the sisters not being left behind, and this woman saying, “He already stinks, for he has been dead four days”: all these things were already enough to silence [those who were unbelieving], since they had become witnesses of the sign. That is why he bids them take away the stone from the tomb, showing that he is raising him; that is why he asks, “Where have you laid him?”, so that those who said, “Come and see,” and led him, might not be able to say that he raised someone else; so that both their voice and their hands might testify (the voice saying, “Come and see,” the hands taking away the stone and loosing the grave-cloths), and sight and hearing (the one hearing the voice, the other seeing him come out), and smell too, perceiving the stench; for she says, “He already stinks, for he has been dead four days.” With reason, then, I said that the woman understood nothing of what Christ said, “Even if he dies, he will live.” See, at any rate, what she says here, as though the thing were now impossible because of the time. For it was a strange thing to raise a dead man four days dead and already decayed. And to the disciples he said, “that the Son of God may be glorified,” speaking of himself; but to the woman, “You will see the glory of God,” speaking of the Father. Do you see that the weakness of the hearers is the cause of the difference in what is said? And he reminds her of what he had said to her, almost rebuking her as forgetful. Or, since he did not yet wish to astonish those present, he says gently, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

A great good, then, is faith, great and the cause of many good things, so that men are able to do the things of God in his name. “For if you believe,” he says, “you will say to this mountain, ‘Move,’ and it will move”; and again, “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater works than these.” “What greater works?” someone says. Those which the disciples are seen doing afterwards. For even the shadow of Peter raised a dead man. In this way the power of Christ too was proclaimed the more. For it was not so wonderful that he should work wonders while alive, as that after his death others should be able in his name to do greater things than he. For this was an indisputable proof of the resurrection; not even if he had appeared to all would it have been so believed. For they could have said that it was an apparition; but one who sees greater signs done by his name alone than when he himself lived among men would not disbelieve, unless he were utterly without perception. A great good, then, is faith, when it comes from a fervent mind, from much affection and a seething soul. It shows us to be wise; it hides human meanness; and, leaving reasonings below, it practises wisdom about the things in heaven; or rather, what human wisdom cannot find, this it grasps and achieves abundantly. Let us, then, hold fast to it, and not entrust our affairs to reasonings. For why, tell me, were the Greeks able to find nothing? Did they not know all the outside wisdom? How then could they not prevail over fishermen and tentmakers and unlearned men? Was it not because they entrusted everything to reasonings, and these to faith? That is why these men surpassed Plato and Pythagoras and, in short, all who went astray, men worn out with geometry and arithmetic and who had learned every branch of education, and became as much better as true philosophers are better than those who are fools by nature and deranged. For see: these men said that the soul is immortal; or rather they not only said it but also persuaded others. But those men at first did not even know what the soul is; and when they found it and distinguished it from the body, they suffered the same again, some saying that it is bodiless, others that it is a body and is dissolved together with the body. About heaven, again, some said that it is animate and a god; but the fishermen said that it is the work and handiwork of God, and taught and persuaded others. But that Greeks used reasonings is no wonder; what deserves lamentation is that those who seem to be believers are found to be unspiritual. That is why these too went astray: some said they knew God as he knows himself, which none even of those [pagans] dared to say; others said that God cannot beget without passion, not even granting him anything more than men; others say that neither does a right life profit anything, nor an exact way of living. But now is not the time to refute these things.

For that right faith profits nothing when the life is corrupt, both Christ and Paul show, taking more care for this part: Christ, when he teaches, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” and again, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” For those who do not take heed to themselves easily slip into wickedness, even if they have right faith. And Paul, when writing to the Hebrews he speaks and exhorts thus: “Pursue peace with all, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord”; calling holiness chastity, so that each man must be content with his own wife and not fall upon another. For one who is not content cannot be saved, but must certainly perish, even if he has countless good deeds. For with sexual immorality it is impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven; or rather, this is no longer sexual immorality but adultery. For as a woman bound to a husband, if she goes with another, has then committed adultery, so a man bound to a wife, if he has another, has committed adultery. And such a man will not inherit the kingdom, but will fall into hell. Hear what Christ says about these: “Their worm will not die, and the fire will not be quenched.” For one who, after having a wife and such great consolation, outrages her by going to another has no excuse; for this is then incontinence. And if many abstain even from their own wife when it is a time of fasting or of prayer, the one who is not content even with her but has intercourse with another, how much fire does he heap up for himself? If [one who has put away his wife may not marry another], for this is adultery, the one who brings another into the house while she is still in it, how much evil does he do? Let no one, then, allow this disease to remain in his soul, but let him tear it up by the roots. He does not wrong his wife so much as himself. For this sin is so grievous and unpardonable that if a wife separates from an idolater against his will, God punishes the wife; but if she separates from a fornicator, no longer. Do you see how great this evil is? “For if any believing woman,” it says, “has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, let her not leave him.” But about a fornicator it is not so; but what? “Whoever puts away his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.” For if intercourse makes one body, the man who has intercourse with a prostitute must become one body with her. How then will the chaste wife, being a member of Christ, receive him? Or how will she join to herself the member of a prostitute? And see the excess. The woman who lives with an unbeliever is not unclean (“For the unbelieving husband,” it says, “is made holy in the wife”); but in the case of the prostitute it is not so; but what? “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?” For there the holiness remains even while he lives with her, and does not depart; but here it withdraws. For terrible is sexual immorality, terrible, and procuring an undying punishment. And here too it draws on countless evils. For such a man is forced to live a miserable and wretched life, and is in no better state than those being punished, slipping into another’s house with much fear and trembling, suspecting everyone at once, both servants and free. So, I beg you, be eager to be rid of this disease. But if you will not be persuaded, do not set foot on the threshold [of the church]. For [sheep] that are full of disease ought not to herd with the healthy, but should be driven from the flock until they have put away the disease. For we have become members of Christ; let us not become members of a prostitute. What is here is not a brothel, but a church. If you have the members of a prostitute, do not stand in church, lest you outrage the place. For even if there were no hell, even if there were no punishment, after those contracts and the wedding torches, after the lawful bed, after the begetting of children, after the partnership, how will you bear [to look at another woman], or [unite yourself] with another? How are you not ashamed, nor do you blush? Do you not know that those who after the death of their own wife bring in another are condemned by many, although the thing carries no punishment? But you bring in another while she is still alive. And of how great lust is this! Learn what is said about such men: “Their worm,” it says, “will not die, and the fire will not be quenched.” The pleasure here is not as great as the punishment there. But may no one become liable to that punishment; but may we practise holiness and see Christ, and attain the promised good things; may we all enjoy them, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, to the ages of ages. Amen.