Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 57.1–57.5

“And his disciples asked him, saying, ‘Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’” So they did not know this from the Scriptures, but those men explained it to them, and this saying was current among the ignorant people, as also about the Christ. That is why the Samaritan woman too said, “The Messiah is coming; when he comes, he will tell us all things”; and they themselves asked John, “Are you Elijah, or the prophet?” For the saying prevailed, as I said, both that about the Christ and that about Elijah, but it was not interpreted by them as it ought to have been. For the Scriptures speak of two comings of Christ, this one which has taken place and the one to come; and Paul, showing these, said, “The saving grace of God has appeared, training us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and righteously and godly.” Here is the one; hear how he shows the other too. For having said this, he added, “awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” And the prophets too mention both; of the one, however, the second, they say that Elijah will be the forerunner. For of the first John was the forerunner, whom Christ also called Elijah, not because he was Elijah, but because he fulfilled his ministry. For as that man will be the forerunner of the second coming, so this one was of the first. But the scribes, confusing these things and perverting the people, mentioned to the people only that one, the second coming, and said, “If this man is the Christ, Elijah ought to have come before him.” That is why the disciples too say, “How do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” That is why also the Pharisees, sending to John, asked, “Are you Elijah?” nowhere mentioning the first coming. What, then, is the solution which Christ brought in? That Elijah comes then, before my second coming; and now too Elijah has come—so calling John. In this way Elijah came. But if you seek the Tishbite, he is coming. That is why he also said, “Elijah indeed comes, and will restore all things.” What all things? Those which the prophet Malachi spoke of. “For I will send you,” he says, “Elijah the Tishbite, who will restore the heart of the father to the son, lest I come and strike the earth utterly.” Do you see the exactness of the prophetic word? For since Christ called John Elijah because of their sharing in the ministry, so that you may not think that this is what the prophet too is saying now, he added also his country, saying, “the Tishbite”; and John was not a Tishbite. And along with this he sets another mark, saying, “lest I come and strike the earth utterly,” showing his second, fearful coming. For at the first he did not come to strike the earth. “For I came not,” he says, “to judge the world, but to save the world.” Showing, then, that the Tishbite comes before that coming which brings judgment, he said this. And at the same time he teaches also the reason of his coming. And what is the reason? That he may come and persuade the Jews to believe in Christ, and that they may not all utterly perish when he comes. That is why he himself too, referring them to that remembrance, says, “and will restore all things,” that is, will correct the unbelief of the Jews who are found then. That is why he spoke very exactly. For he did not say, “He will restore the heart of the son to the father,” but “of the father to the son.” For since the Jews were fathers of the apostles, he says this: that he will restore to the doctrines of their sons, that is, of the apostles, the hearts of the fathers, that is, the mind of the race of the Jews. “But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands. Then they understood that he had spoken to them of John.” And yet neither the scribes said this nor the Scriptures; but since they had now become sharper and more attentive to what was said, they quickly understood. And whence did the disciples know this? He had already told them before, “He is Elijah who is to come”; and here, that he has come; and again, that “Elijah comes and will restore all things.” But do not be troubled, nor think the saying has gone astray, if he said at one time that he will come and at another that he has come. For all these things are true. For when he says, “Elijah indeed comes and will restore all things,” he means Elijah himself, and the conversion of the Jews that will take place then; but when he says, “who is to come,” he calls John Elijah after the manner of his ministry. For the prophets too called each of the approved kings David, and the Jews “rulers of Sodom” and “sons of Ethiopians,” from their ways. For as that man will be forerunner of the second coming, so this one was of the first.

And not for this reason only does he everywhere name him Elijah, but to show that he is in full agreement with the Old Testament, and that this coming too was according to prophecy. That is why he also adds again that “he came, and they did not know him, but did to him all they wished.” What is “all they wished”? They cast him into prison, they insulted him, they killed him, they brought his head on a platter. “So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.” Do you see how he again reminds them of the passion at the right moment, giving them great consolation from the passion of John? And not by this alone, but also by working great miracles at once. For whenever he speaks of the passion, he at once works wonders, both after these words and before them; and one may find this by observing it in many places. “Then,” at any rate, it says, “he began to show that he must go away to Jerusalem and be killed and suffer many things.” Then: when? When he had been confessed to be the Christ and the Son of God. Again on the mountain, when he had shown them the wonderful sight and the prophets had spoken of his glory, he reminded them of the passion. For having told the story of John, he added, “So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.” And a little after, again, when he had cast out the demon which the disciples could not cast out. For then too, “while they were staying in Galilee,” it says, “Jesus said to them that the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” And he did this, cutting away the excess of their grief by the greatness of the miracles, and consoling them in every way; as here too, by the remembrance of John’s death, he gave them great comfort. But if someone should say, “Why then did he not raise Elijah and send him now too, if he testifies that so many good things come from his coming?”, we shall say that even now, thinking that Christ was Elijah, they did not believe in him. “For some,” he says, “say you are Elijah, others Jeremiah.” And between John and Elijah there was no difference except the time alone. “How then will they believe then?” someone says. For “he will restore all things,” not only because he is well known, but also because by that day the glory of Christ will have spread further, and be plainer to all than the sun. When, then, after such an opinion and expectation has gone before, that man comes preaching the same things as this one, and himself too proclaiming Jesus, they will more readily accept what is said. And when he says, “They did not know him,” he also makes a defense for his own case. And not in this way only does he console them, but also by showing that he suffers unjustly at their hands what he suffers, and by covering over the painful things with two signs, the one on the mountain and the one about to happen. Hearing these things, they do not ask him when Elijah comes, either pressed down by despondency at the passion, or afraid. For in many places, when they see that he does not wish to say something plainly, they then keep silent. At any rate, when, as they were staying in Galilee, he said, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered up, and they will kill him,” Mark adds that they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him; and Luke, that it was veiled from them, so that they should not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about the saying. “And when they came to the crowd, a man came to him, kneeling to him, and saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is moonstruck and suffers terribly; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water; and I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.’” This man the Scripture shows to be very weak in faith; and this is plain from many things: from Christ’s saying, “All things are possible to him who believes”; and from the one who came saying himself, “Help my unbelief”; and from Christ’s commanding the demon never to enter him again; and from the man’s saying again to Christ, “If you can.” “And if his unbelief,” someone says, “was the cause of the demon’s not coming out, why does he blame the disciples?” To show that it was possible for them often to heal even without those who bring the sick having faith. For as the faith of the one who brought was often enough for receiving even from lesser persons, so the power of those who worked often sufficed to work wonders even when those who came did not believe. And both of these are shown in the Scriptures. For those with Cornelius drew down the grace of the Spirit by their own faith; and in the case of Elisha, when no one believed, a dead man rose. For those who threw him in threw him not from faith but from cowardice, simply and at random, fearing the raiding band, and fled; and the man thrown in was dead; and by the power of the holy body alone the dead man rose. From this it is plain that here the disciples too were weak; but not all, for the pillars were not present there. But see this man’s ingratitude also from another point, how before the crowd he pleads with Jesus against the disciples, saying, “I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” But he, freeing them from the charges before the people, reckons the greater part to that man. “For, O faithless and perverse generation,” he says, “how long shall I be with you?”—directing this not to that man’s person alone, so as not to put the man at a loss, but also to all the Jews. For it is likely that many of those present were offended and thought unfitting things about them. And when he says, “How long shall I be with you?”, he shows again that death is welcome to him and a thing desired, and his departure longed for; and that what is heavy is not being crucified but being with them. Yet he did not stop at the charges; but what does he say? “Bring him here to me.” And he himself asks him how long he has had it, both defending the disciples and leading that man to good hope, and to believe that there will be deliverance from the evil for him. And he lets him be convulsed, not for display (since, when a crowd was gathering, he even rebuked the demon), but for the father’s sake; so that when he saw the demon troubled merely by being called, he might at least so be led to faith in the miracle to come. And since that man said, “from childhood,” and, “If you can, help me,” he says, “All things are possible to him who believes,” again turning the charge back upon him. And when the leper said, “If you will, you can make me clean,” bearing witness to his authority, he praised him and confirmed what was said, saying, “I will; be clean.” But when this man uttered something unworthy of his power, saying, “If you can, help me,” see how he corrects it, as not rightly said. For what does he say? “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” What he says is something like this: “There is in me such abundance of power that I can make others too work these wonders. So if you believe as you should, you yourself too can heal,” he says, “both this boy and many others.” And having said this, he freed the possessed boy. But consider his providence and beneficence not only from this, but also from that time during which he allowed the demon to be inside. For if the man had not then too enjoyed much providence, he would long ago have perished. For “it cast him into the fire,” it says, “and into the water.” And one who dared this would certainly have killed him, had not God, even in so great a madness, put a strong bridle on it; as also in the case of those naked men who ran in the deserts and cut themselves with stones. And if he calls him moonstruck, do not be troubled; for the voice is that of the possessed boy’s father. How then does the evangelist too say that he healed many who were moonstruck? Calling them by the opinion of the many. For the demon, to slander the element, both attacks those it has seized and lets them go according to the courses of the moon; not that the moon is at work—away with that!—but he does this mischief himself to slander the element. That is why a mistaken opinion has prevailed among the foolish, and, deceived, they call such demons so; for this is not true. “Then the disciples came to him privately and asked why they could not cast out the demon.” They seem to me to have been in agony and afraid that they had lost the grace with which they had been entrusted. For they had received authority against unclean demons. That is why they ask, coming to him privately—not from shame (for if the deed had come out and they had been convicted, it was superfluous to be ashamed of confessing it in words), but because they were about to ask him about a hidden and great matter. What then does Christ say? “Because of your unbelief,” he says. “For if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible to you.” But if you should say, “Where did they move a mountain?”, I would say that they did far greater things, raising countless dead. For it is not the same to move a mountain and to drive death from a body. And it is said that after them certain saints, much less than they, moved even mountains when need called. Hence it is plain that these too would have moved them if need had called. But if no need arose then, do not blame them. And besides, he himself did not say, “You will certainly move them,” but that you will be able to do this too. And if they did not move them, it was not because they could not (for how could they, who were able to do greater things?), but because they did not wish to, because no need arose. And it is likely that this too happened and was not written; for not all the wonders they worked were written. At that time, however, they were in a much more imperfect state. What then? Did they not have even this faith then? They did not; for they were not always the same. For Peter too is now called blessed and now rebuked; and the others too are mocked by him for their folly, when they did not understand the saying about the leaven. And it happened then too that the disciples were weak; for they were in a more imperfect state before the cross. And by faith here he means the faith of the signs; and he mentions mustard, to show its unspeakable power. For even if mustard seems small in bulk, yet in power it is stronger than all. Showing, then, that even the least of genuine faith can do great things, he mentioned mustard; and not only did he stop there, but he added mountains too, and went further. “For nothing,” he says, “will be impossible to you.”

But here too admire their wisdom and the power of the Spirit: their wisdom, because they did not hide their own shortcoming; the power of the Spirit, because those who did not have even a grain of mustard seed he so raised up little by little as to make rivers and springs of faith rise up in them. “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting”—meaning the whole kind of demons, not only that of the moonstruck. Do you see how he is already laying down beforehand for them the teaching on fasting? For do not tell me, from rare cases, that some have cast them out even without fasting. For even if one might say this of those who rebuked them, of one perhaps or two, yet it is impossible for one who suffers this ever to be freed from this madness while living in luxury. For the one sick with such things needs this above all. “And yet if faith is needed,” someone says, “why is fasting needed?” Because along with faith it too brings in no small strength. For it implants great wisdom, and makes an angel out of a man, and boxes against the bodiless powers; but not by itself: prayer too is needed, and prayer first. See, at any rate, how many good things come from both. For he who prays as he ought, and fasts, does not need much; and he who does not need much would not become a lover of money; and he who is not a lover of money is also more ready for almsgiving. He who fasts is light and winged, and prays with sobriety, and quenches wicked desires, and propitiates God, and humbles the soul when it is lifted up. That is why the apostles too almost always fasted. He who prays with fasting has double wings, lighter than the winds themselves. For he does not yawn and stretch and grow numb in prayer, as the many do; but he is more vehement than fire, and higher than the earth. That is why such a one is above all hostile and an enemy to the demons. For nothing is more powerful than a man who prays genuinely. For if a woman was able to bend a cruel ruler, one who neither feared God nor respected man, much more will he draw God to him who continually waits on him, and masters his belly, and casts out luxury. But if your body is too weak to fast continually, yet it is not weak for prayer, nor feeble for disregarding the belly. For even if you cannot fast, you can avoid luxury; and this is no small thing, nor far from fasting, but this too is enough to pull down the madness of the devil. For nothing is so dear to that demon as luxury and drunkenness, since it is the spring and mother of all evils. Through it, at any rate, he once cast the Israelites into idolatry; through it he kindled the Sodomites to lawless loves. “For this,” it says, “was the iniquity of Sodom: in pride, and in fullness of bread, and in plenty they lived in wantonness.” Through it he has destroyed countless others and handed them over to Gehenna. For what evil does luxury not work? It makes swine out of men, and worse than swine. For the swine wallows in mud and feeds on dung; but this man eats a more loathsome table than that, devising lawless unions and lawless loves. Such a one differs in nothing from one possessed; for he is shameless and mad in the same way. And the possessed man we pity, but this one we turn away from and hate. Why? Because he draws on himself a madness of his own choosing, and makes his mouth and eyes and nostrils and everything, in a word, into sewers. And if you were to see the inside too, you would see the soul as in a storm and frost, frozen and numb, unable to help the vessel because of the excess of the storm. I am ashamed to say how many evils men and women suffer from luxury; I leave it to their own conscience, which knows these things more exactly. For what is more shameful than a drunken woman, or one at all carried away? For the weaker the vessel, the greater the shipwreck, whether she is free or a slave. For the free woman behaves indecently in the midst of a theater of slaves, and the slave woman again likewise among the slaves; and they cause the gifts of God to be blasphemed by the foolish. Many, at any rate, I hear saying, when these misfortunes happen, “Let there be no wine.” O folly! O madness! When others sin, do you find fault with the gifts of God? And how great a madness is this! Did the wine, man, do this evil? Not the wine, but the intemperance of those who enjoy it wrongly. Say, then, “Let there be no drunkenness, let there be no luxury”; but if you say, “Let there be no wine,” you will say, going on little by little, “Let there be no iron, because of the murderers; no night, because of the thieves; no light, because of the informers; no woman, because of adulteries”; and you will, in a word, do away with everything.

But do not act so; for this belongs to a satanic mind; and do not slander the wine, but the drunkenness; and taking this man himself when he is sober, sketch for him all his indecency, and say to him: Wine was given that we might be glad, not that we might behave indecently; that we might laugh, not that we might be laughed at; that we might be healthy, not that we might be sick; that we might correct the weakness of the body, not that we might cast down the strength of the soul. God honored you with the gift; why do you outrage yourself by excess? Hear what Paul says: “Use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent ailments.” And if that saint, held by sickness and enduring illnesses one after another, did not partake of wine until his teacher permitted it, what pardon could we have, who are drunk in health? To him he said, “Use a little wine for your stomach’s sake”; but to each of you who are drunk he will say, “Use little wine because of your acts of sexual immorality, because of your frequent obscene talk, because of the other wicked desires that drunkenness is wont to beget.” But if you do not wish to abstain for these reasons, at least abstain because of the despondency and the nausea that come from it. For wine was given for gladness: “for wine,” it says, “gladdens the heart of man”; but you ruin even this excellence of it. For what kind of gladness is it not to be in one’s own mind, and to have countless pains, and to see everything going round, and to be seized with dizziness, and, like those in a fever, to need people to soak one’s head with oil? These things are said by me not to all; or rather to all—not because all are drunk, God forbid—but because those who are not drunk take no thought for those who are. That is why I address myself rather to you who are healthy; for the physician too, leaving the sick, speaks to those sitting beside them. To you, then, I direct my word, begging you never to be caught by this passion, and to draw up those who have been caught, so that they may not appear worse than the irrational animals. For these seek nothing beyond need; but these men have become more irrational even than they, overstepping the bounds of moderation. For how much better than these men is the ass! How much better the dog! For each of these animals, and of all the others too, whether it needs to eat or to drink, knows sufficiency as its limit, and does not go beyond need; and even if countless people press it, it will not bear to go out into excess. So in this you are worse than the irrational animals, not in the judgment of the healthy only, but in your own too. For that you have judged yourselves more worthless than dogs and asses is plain from this: these irrational animals you do not compel to take food beyond measure, and if someone asks why, you will say, “So as not to harm them”; but to yourself you do not show even this care. So you consider yourself cheaper even than those, and you overlook yourself continually storm-tossed. For not on the day of drunkenness only do you suffer the harm of drunkenness, but also after that day. And as when a fever has passed the damage of the fever remains, so when drunkenness has gone, the surge of drunkenness turns about both in the soul and in the body; and the wretched body lies loosened, like a vessel after a shipwreck; but the soul, more miserable than it, even after the body has been loosed, rouses the storm and kindles the desire, and when it seems to be sober, then above all it is mad, imagining wine and jars and cups and mixing bowls. And as in a storm, when the surge has ceased, the damage from the storm remains, so it is here too. For as there with the cargo, so here too there is a jettisoning of all good things. If it finds self-control, if modesty, if understanding, if gentleness, if humility, drunkenness throws them all into the sea of lawlessness. But what follows is no longer alike. For there, after the jettisoning, the vessel is lightened; but here it is weighed down more. For in place of that wealth it takes in sand and salt water and all the refuse of drunkenness, which at once sinks the vessel together with the passengers and the helmsman. So that we may not suffer these things, then, let us free ourselves from the storm. It is not possible with drunkenness to see the kingdom of the heavens. “For do not be deceived,” it says; “no drunkards, no revilers will inherit the kingdom of God.” And why do I speak of the kingdom? For with drunkenness one cannot even see present things. For drunkenness turns our days into nights and light into darkness; and with their eyes open the drunk do not even see what is at their feet. And this is not the only dreadful thing, but along with these they also suffer another, most grievous penalty, enduring continually senseless despondency, madness, sickness, laughter, reproach. What pardon, then, is there for those who pierce themselves with so many evils? There is none. Let us flee, then, the disease, so that we may attain both the good things here and those to come, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, to the ages of ages. Amen.