Homilies on Philippians 11.1–11.4

“But whatever things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yes indeed, and I count all things to be loss because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God upon faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.” Minds that are in their prime for contests with the heretics must be attacked, and continually. For so it is possible to throw their battle line into confusion and to win with abundance to spare, giving them no leisure to breathe. That is why, wishing you to be prepared from the Scriptures for such contests, so that from them too you may be able to stop the mouths of those who contradict, I make the beginning of this discourse from the end of the last. And what was its end, someone asks? Having listed all the Jewish grounds for boasting, those from nature and those from choice, he added: “But whatever things were gain to me, these I have counted loss … all things to be loss because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them refuse, that I may gain Christ.” Here the heretics leap in. And this too belongs to the wisdom of the Spirit: to give them hopes of victory, so that they may accept the battle. For if it had been said openly, what they did with other passages they would have done with these too: they would have blotted out the letters, they would have rejected the Scripture, being unable to look it in the face at all. But just as with fish, what can catch them is hidden, so that they may rush at it, and it does not lie in plain view, so it happened here too, by Paul's calling the law a loss. “The law is called refuse,” they say, “it is called loss; it was not possible to gain Christ unless I suffered the loss of it.” They accepted all these things, thinking them to be on their side; but when they had accepted them, then he surrounded them with the nets on every side. For what do those men say, leaping in? “See, the law is a loss; see, it is called refuse. How, then, do you say that it is God's?” These very words are on the side of the law; and how, is clear from what follows. Let us attend carefully to what is said. He did not say, “The law is a loss,” but, “I have counted it loss”; and when he spoke of gain, he did not say, “I have counted,” but, “it was gain”; but when of loss, he said, “I have counted”; rightly: for the former was by nature, but the latter has come about from our own judgment. What then? Is the law not a loss, someone says? It is, but because of Christ; but before, it was gain. It was not thought to be gain, he said, but it was; all but saying: Consider how great a thing it was to bring men brutalized in their nature into the form of men. If the law had not existed, grace would not have been given either. Why? Because it became a kind of bridge. For since it was not possible to go up from great lowliness to the height, it became a ladder. But even if the one who has gone up no longer needs the ladder, he does not for that reason despise it, but is even grateful to it; for it brought him to the point of no longer needing it; and yet, for this very reason, that he does not need it, it is right, he says, to acknowledge his gratitude to it; for he would not have gone up. So also with the law: it led us up to a height; so it was gain; but now we count it loss. How? Not because it is a loss, but because grace is much greater. For just as a poor man in famine, as long as he has silver, escapes the famine; but when he finds gold and cannot keep both, he counts it loss to keep the silver, and letting it go, takes the gold; and he lets it go, not because the silver is a loss (for it is not), but because it is not possible to take the two together, but one must leave the one; so here too. It is not the law, then, that is loss, but sitting by the law and standing away from Christ. So when it leads us away from Christ, then it is loss; but if it sends us on to him, no longer. That is why he says “loss”, that is, because of Christ. If because of Christ, it is not by nature a loss. But why does the law not allow us to come to Christ? Yet it was given for this, he says; and “Christ is the fulfilment of the law,” and “Christ is the end of the law.” It does allow it, if we are willing to obey it. Does the one who obeys the law, then, let the law go? He lets it go, if we pay attention; but if we do not pay attention, he does not. “Yes indeed, and I count all things to be loss.” Why do I say this about the law, he says? Is the world not good? Is the present life not good? But if it leads me away from Christ, I count these things loss. Why? “Because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord.” For when the sun has appeared, to sit by the lamp is a loss. So the loss comes from the comparison, from what surpasses. Do you see that he makes a comparison? “Because of the surpassing worth,” he says, not because of what is foreign; for what surpasses surpasses something of the same kind. So by the things from which he makes the superiority by comparison, by these he shows the kinship of the knowledge. “For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them refuse, that I may gain Christ.” As to “refuse”, it is not yet clear whether he says “refuse” about the law; for it is likely that he says this about worldly things. For having said, “But whatever things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ,” “Yes indeed,” he says, “and I count all things to be loss.” He said “all things”, both the old and the present. But if you will have it the law too, not even so has it been insulted. For refuse comes from the wheat, and the refuse is what is strong in the wheat, the chaff, I mean. So before this the refuse was useful; for we gather it with the wheat, and if there had been no refuse, the wheat would not have come to be. So also with the law.

Do you see how everywhere he calls the thing loss not in itself, but because of Christ? “Yes indeed, and I count all things loss.” Why? Again, “because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” Then he adds: “Therefore I count all things loss, that I may gain Christ.” Do you see how on every side he lays hold of the support of Christ, and nowhere lets the law be stripped bare or receive a blow, but surrounds it on every side? “And be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law.” If the one who had righteousness ran to this righteousness because that was nothing, how much more ought those who have none run to it! And he said well, “not having my own righteousness”, not that which I acquired by toils and sweat, but that which I found from grace, he says. If, then, the one who did right is saved by grace, much more you. For since it was likely that they would say that this righteousness, the one that comes through toil, is greater, he shows that it is refuse compared with that. For I would never, having achieved it, have thrown it away and run to this. And what is this? That which is from faith in God; that is, this too is given by God; this righteousness is God's; it is wholly a gift. And God's gifts far surpass in measure the meanness of the achievements that come from our own zeal. And what is faith? “Upon faith,” he says, “that I may know him.” So knowledge comes through faith, and without faith it is not possible to know him. How? Through it one must know the power of his resurrection; for what reasoning will present the resurrection to us? Not one, but faith. And if the resurrection of Christ according to the flesh is known by faith, how is the begetting of God the Word grasped by reasonings? For the resurrection is less than the begetting. Why? Because of the former there have been many examples, but of the latter not one. For many dead rose before Christ, even if they died again after rising; but no one was ever born of a virgin. If, then, what is meaner even than the birth according to the flesh must be received by faith, how is what is much greater, infinitely and incomparably greater, grasped by reasoning? These things make righteousness. For one must believe this, that he was able; but how he was able cannot be set forth; for from faith comes the fellowship of the sufferings. How? For if we did not believe, we would not suffer; if we did not believe [that if we endure with him we shall also reign with him], we would not suffer the sufferings. So both the birth and the resurrection are grasped by faith. Do you see that faith must not be bare, but shown through works? For this man most of all believes that Christ rose, the one who boldly gives himself up to dangers, who shares with him in his sufferings; for he shares with one who has risen, with one who lives. That is why he said: “And be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God upon faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” “Being conformed,” he says, “to his death”, that is, sharing in it. For just as he suffered at the hands of men, so do I; that is why he said, “being conformed”; and elsewhere again, “I fill up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.” That is, these persecutions and sufferings fashion that image of his death. For he did not seek his own advantage, but that of the many. So persecutions, afflictions, and distresses ought not only not to trouble you, but even to gladden you, because through them we are conformed to his death; as if he said, we are made into his image; as he says when writing elsewhere, “carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.” And this comes from great faith. For we believe not only that he rose, but that even after the resurrection he has great power. That is why we travel the same road that he travelled; that is, we become his brothers in this respect too; as if he said, we become Christs in this respect. Ah, how great is the dignity of sufferings! We believe that through sufferings we are conformed to his death. For just as in baptism “we were buried with him in the likeness of his death”, so here we are conformed to his death. There he rightly said, “in the likeness of his death”; for we did not die the whole death; we did not die in the body, in the flesh, but to sin. Since, then, death is spoken of in both cases, but he died in the body and we to sin, … there the man died whom he took, the one in our body; here the man of sin; that is why there he says, “in the likeness of his death”, but here no longer the likeness of death, but “to his death” itself.

For Paul no longer died to sin in the persecutions, but in the body itself; so he endured the same death. “If by any means,” he says, “I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” What are you saying? Surely all obtain it: “For we shall not all sleep,” he says, “but we shall all be changed”; and not resurrection only, but incorruption, all of them, some for honour, others as provision for punishment. If, then, all obtain the resurrection, and not the resurrection only but incorruption, how did you say, as one about to obtain something special, “if by any means I may attain”? I suffer these things for this reason, he says, “if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead”; for if you had not died, you would not rise. What, then, is it? He seems to hint here at something great; for it was so great that he did not even dare to declare it, but says simply, “if by any means”. I have believed in him and in his resurrection, and I also suffer for him, but I cannot yet be confident about the resurrection. What resurrection does he mean here? The one that leads to Christ himself. I have said that I have believed in him and in the power of his resurrection, and that I am a partaker of his sufferings, and that I am conformed to his death; but nevertheless after all these things I am not yet confident; as he says elsewhere, “Let the one who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”; and again, “I fear lest perhaps, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.” “Not that I have already received it, or am already made perfect, but I press on, if I may also lay hold of that for which I was also laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” “Not that I have already received.” What is “already received”? He means the prize. If the one who suffered so much, if the one who was persecuted, if the one who had the dying, was not yet confident about that resurrection, what could we say? What is “if I may lay hold”? What he said before: “if I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” His resurrection, he says, if I may lay hold of it; that is, if I can suffer so much, if I can imitate him, if I can become conformed to him. For example, Christ suffered much: he was spat upon, struck, scourged, and finally died. This is the racecourse: through all these one must reach his resurrection, having borne all the contests. Either, then, he means this, or that, if I am counted worthy to obtain an approved resurrection, one that has boldness, I reach his resurrection. For if I can bear all the contests, I shall be able to have his resurrection too, and to rise with glory. For I am not yet worthy, he says; “but I press on, if I may also lay hold.” My life is still in the contest, I am still far from the end, I am still far from the prizes, I still run, I still press on. And he did not say, “I run”, but, “I press on”, rightly. For you know with what intensity the one who pursues pursues: he sees no one, he pushes aside with great force all who cut across his path, and he gathers up mind and eye and strength and soul and body, looking at nothing else but the prize alone. And if Paul, pressing on, who suffered so much, still says, “if I may lay hold,” what could we say, who have fallen back? Then, showing that the thing is a debt, he says, “for which I was also laid hold of by Jesus Christ.” I was among those perishing, he says; I was drowning, I was about to perish; God laid hold of me; for he pursued us with great eagerness as we fled from him. By this he shows all these things; for by saying, “I was laid hold of,” he showed both the eagerness of the one who wished to lay hold, and our great turning away and wandering, and that we were fleeing him.

That is why it is worth weeping, that, when all have come back again to their former condition, and when we are liable for a great debt, no one mourns, no one weeps, no one groans. And do not condemn the discourse as irony. For just as before Christ's coming we fled from God, so we flee him now too; for it is possible to flee God, not in place (for he is everywhere), but in works. And that it is not possible to flee him in place, hear the prophet saying, “Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your presence?” How, then, is it possible to flee God? As it is possible to be far from God, as it is possible to be removed far off: “For those who remove themselves far from you,” it says, “will perish”; and again, “Is it not your sins that separate between me and you?” How, then, does the removal happen? How does the separation come about? By will and soul; for in place it is not possible; for how could one flee the one who is present everywhere? The sinner, then, flees. This is what Scripture says: “The ungodly flees when no one pursues.” We flee God hard, though he always pursues us. The Apostle pursued so as to come near him; we pursue so as to be far away. Are these things not worthy of lamentation? Are they not worthy of tears? Where are you fleeing, wretched and miserable man? Where are you fleeing from your life and your salvation? If you flee God, to whom will you take refuge? If you flee the light, where will you see? If you flee life, from where will you live after that? Let us flee the enemy of our salvation. When we sin, we flee from God, we run away, we go off into a foreign land, like that man who devoured his father's property and went off into a foreign land, who squandered all his father's substance and lived in famine. We too, then, have a father's substance. What is it? He freed us from our sins; he gave us power, strength for the doing of virtue; he gave us eagerness, endurance; in baptism he gave us the Holy Spirit. If we squander these things, we shall then be in famine. For just as the sick, while they are troubled by fevers and bad humours, can neither get up nor work nor do anything, but if someone frees them and brings them to health and then they do not work, this happens through their own sloth; so also with us. A severe disease and a violent fever lay upon us; and we lay not on a bed, but on wickedness itself, flung down in evil as on a dunghill, …, phantoms rather than men. Wicked demons stood around us; the ruler of this world was laughing and trampling on us. The Only-begotten of God came; he sent forth the rays of his coming, and at once drove away the gloom. The King who is on the Father's throne came to us, leaving the Father's throne (and when I say “leaving”, do not again think of a change of place; for he fills heaven and earth; but I say this because of the dispensation). He came to an enemy who hated him, who turned away from him, who could not bear even to see him, who blasphemed him every day. He saw him lying on a dunghill, having every kind of disease. For fever troubled him, that is, evil desire; and inflammations lay upon him, that is, arrogance; and what is called ravenous hunger held him, that is, greed; and rottings on every side, that is, sexual immorality; and blindness of the eyes, that is, idolatry; and deafness and derangement, that is, worshipping stones and wood and speaking to them; and great ugliness, that is, wickedness: something disgusting, and a most grievous disease. He saw us speaking worse than madmen, calling the wood god and the stone likewise; he saw us in such wickedness, and was not disgusted, was not annoyed, did not turn away, did not hate; for he was Master, and would not have hated his own creature. But what does he do? Like the best of physicians he prepares remedies of great value, and is the first to taste them himself; for he himself was the first to pursue virtue, and so gave it to us. And first, like an antidote, he gave the bath, and so we vomited up all wickedness, and everything was banished at once: the inflammation ceased, the fever was quenched, the rottings were cauterized. For all that came from greed, from anger, and the other evils were emptied out through the Spirit; the eyes were opened, the ears were opened, the tongue spoke a good word, the soul received strength, the body received such beauty and bloom as a son of God, newly born, might be expected to have from the grace of the Spirit, such glory as a son newly born to a king and reared in purple might be expected to have. Alas, how great a nobility he granted us! But we [were born], were so nurtured, so benefited: why do we flee our benefactor again? The one, then, who did all these things gives strength too; for it was not possible for those held by the disease to bear it, unless he himself had given us the strength. He gave forgiveness of sins; we set the gift at nought. He gave us wealth; we scattered it, we devoured it all. He gave us strength; we squandered it. He gave us a gift; we quenched it. How? We spent it on nothing needful, we used it in nothing useful. These things destroyed us; and what is most terrible of all, being in a foreign land and eating carob pods, we do not say, “Let us return to the Father and say, We have sinned against heaven and against you”; and that though we have a Father so tender, who greatly longs for our return. If only we depart from wickedness, if only we return to him, he does not even bear to reproach us any more for the past; only let us depart; for returning is a sufficient defence. Why do I say he does not bear to reproach? Not only does he himself not reproach, but even if another reproaches, he is silenced, even if the one reproaching is well approved. So let us return. How long shall we stand apart? Let us take notice of the dishonour, let us take notice of the meanness. Wickedness makes us swine; wickedness brings famine to the soul. Let us recover ourselves and take ourselves up again, and return to our former nobility, so that we may obtain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, power, honour, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.