Homilies on Philippians 6.3–7.1

Tell me, if someone who has no power to take more than his share remains in possession of his own, shall we praise him for justice? Not at all. Why? Because necessity has taken away the praise due to the will. Tell me, if someone who cannot become a tyrant and reign remains a private man, shall we praise him? Not at all. Then not here either. For praise, you most ignorant of all people, comes not from abstaining from these things, but from doing good. The one is free from blame, but does not yet share in praise; the other is worthy of commendation. See, then, how Christ too praises in this way, when he says, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” He did not say, “Because you did not take more than your share,” nor, “Because you did not seize” (for these are small things), but, “Because you saw me hungry and fed me.” And who would have praised either friends or enemies in this way? One would not even so praise Paul. Why do I say Paul? No one would have praised even an ordinary man as you praise Christ, for not taking a rule that did not belong to him. For to admire such things belongs to people who testify to great wickedness. How? Because in their case such a thing is praise, as with the thief if he no longer steals; but with good people it is not so: a man is not praiseworthy because he did not seize a rule and honour that did not belong to him. And what folly this is! Besides (but attend, I beg you, for the discourse is long), who would urge humility from these things? For the examples must be much greater than the subject to which we exhort; for no one would be urged on by things foreign to him. For example, Christ urged doing good to enemies: he brought forward a great example, that of the Father, “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” He urged forbearance: he brought forward himself as example: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart”; and again, “If I, the Lord and Teacher, do these things, how much more you?” Do you see how the examples are not far removed? For they must not be so far removed; and we do the same. Yet here the example is not even near. How? Because if he is a servant, he is also lesser and subject to the greater. But this is not humility. For he ought to have done the opposite, to show someone greater obeying the lesser. But since he did not find this in God, I mean a greater and a lesser, he at least put forward equality. If the Son were lesser, it would not be enough to urge humility. Why? Because it is not humility for the lesser not to rise against the greater, not to seize the rule, to obey to the point of death. Besides, see too what he says after the example: “In humility … counting,” he says. For since you are one both in substance and in the honour that comes from God, the thing must from now on be a matter of your judgment. But with greater and lesser he would not have said “counting”, but, “Honour those who are above you,” as he says elsewhere, “Obey your leaders and submit to them.” There the subjection belongs to nature and to the thing itself; here it must come from our judgment. “In humility,” he says, “counting one another better than yourselves,” as Christ also did. So their arguments are overturned in this way. But we must now state our own, having first stated theirs in summary: that in exhorting to humility he would not have brought forward one who was lesser and obeyed the greater. For if he were exhorting slaves to obey masters, it would be fitting; but if free men to obey free men, why did he bring in the subjection of a slave to his master, of a lesser to a greater? For he did not say, “You who are lesser …”, but “counting one another better than yourselves”. And why did he not at least bring in the example of the wife: “As the wife obeys the husband, so you also obey”? If he did not bring in what is equal and free, because it was altogether a small kind of subjection, how much more would he not have brought in that of the slave? As I said before, no one praises anyone in this way for abstaining from evils, nor even mentions it at all; no one wishing to praise a chaste man will say this, that he did not commit adultery, but that he even abstained from his own wife. For nowhere do we set down abstinence from evils as praise; that is laughable. I said that the form of the servant is real and not less; then the form of God too is perfect and not less. Why did he not say, “having come to be in the form of God”, but “being”? This is equivalent to saying, “I am the one who is.” The form shows exact likeness, as a form is. It is not possible for one who is of another substance to have the form of another; for example, no man has the form of an angel, nor does an irrational animal have the form of a man. How, then, could the Son?

Then, in our case, since we are composite, the form is that of the body; but in the case of what is simple and uncompounded, it is surely that of the substance. And if you say that, because it is said without the article, it does not indicate the Father, in many places it is shown to be said of him without the article. And why do I say in many places? In this very passage: “He did not count it robbery,” he says, “to be equal with God”; and he did not say it with the article, though he was speaking of God the Father. I wish to add our own arguments too, but I fear that we may bury your minds. For the present remember what has been said for the overthrow of those men. For now let us cut out the thorns, and then we shall cast in the good seed, after the thorns have been cut out and the ground has had a little rest, so that, having put off all the wickedness from them, it may receive the divine seeds with great virtue. Let us give thanks to God for what has been said; let us ask him to grant that it be guarded and kept, so that both we and you may rejoice, and to open our mouth in what follows, so that we may again entrust our own arguments to you with the same eagerness. Let us pray to him also to grant us a life worthy of the faith, so that we may live for his glory, so that his name may not be blasphemed because of us. For “woe to you,” it says, “because of whom the name of God is blasphemed.” For if we who have a son (and yet what is more one's own than a son?), if we who have a son, when we are blasphemed because of him, do not receive him, how much more will God, having ungrateful servants who blaspheme and insult him, not turn away and hate them? And whom God hates and turns away from, who will receive? No one but the devil, the demons. And whom the demons take, what hope of salvation will he have? What consolation of life? As long as we are in the hand of God, no one can snatch us; for it is strong. But when we fall out of that hand and its help, we are lost; we lie ready for all to plunder, for all to trample, like a leaning wall and a tottering fence. For when the wall is weak, it will be easy for all to get over. Do not think that what I am about to say is said only of Jerusalem, but also of every human being. What was said of Jerusalem? “Let me sing to my beloved a song of my beloved concerning my vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill, in a fertile place. And I put a fence around it and a palisade, and planted a choice vine, and built a tower in the middle of it, and dug a wine vat in it; and I waited for it to produce grapes, but it produced thorns. And now, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, judge between me and my vineyard. What more ought I to have done for my vineyard that I have not done for it? Because I waited for it to produce grapes, but it produced thorns. Now therefore I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its fence, and it shall be for plunder; and I will pull down its wall, and it shall be for trampling; and I will abandon my vineyard, and it shall not be pruned or dug; and thorns shall come up in it as on waste ground; and I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah his beloved young plant. I waited for him to do justice, but he did lawlessness, and not righteousness, but a cry.” This is said of each soul too. For when God, who loves humankind, has done everything he ought, and then it produces thorns instead of grapes, he takes away the fence and pulls down the wall, and we shall be for plunder. For hear how another prophet too said, lamenting: “Why have you pulled down its fence, so that all who pass by on the road pluck it? The boar out of the wood has ravaged it, and the wild solitary beast has fed on it.” There he speaks of the Mede and the Babylonian; but here one cannot say this; the boar and the solitary beast is the devil and all his power. He called him a solitary beast, wishing to show his wildness and uncleanness. For when Scripture wishes to show his rapacity, it says, “He goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour”; but when it wishes to show his venom, deadliness, and destructiveness, it calls him a serpent and a scorpion: “For tread,” it says, “on serpents and scorpions, and on all the power of the enemy”; but when it wishes to show his strength together with his venom, it calls him a dragon, as when it says, “This dragon, which you formed to sport with.” And everywhere it calls him dragon, crooked serpent, and asp. For the beast is many-coiled and varied and has great strength: it moves everything, troubles everything, turns everything upside down. But do not fear, do not be afraid; only be watchful, and he will be like a sparrow; for “tread,” it says, “on serpents and scorpions.” He has made him something for our feet to trample, if we wish. See, then, how ridiculous, how wretched it is, that the one we received power to trample we see standing over our head. How does this happen? Through us. If we wish, he is great; if we wish, he becomes small. If we take heed to ourselves and are with our King, he shrinks and will be no stronger than a little child in the fight against us; when we depart from him, he becomes great, having taken us … bereft of the great alliance. For he does not approach unless God permits. For if he did not dare to attack herds of swine without God's permission, [much less human beings]. God permits it either to discipline, or to exact punishment, or to make people more approved, as with Job. Do you see him not approaching, not even daring to come near, but afraid and trembling? And why do I speak of Job? Even when he sprang upon Judas he did not dare to take him wholly and enter into him until Christ cut him off from the holy band. Then he attacked from outside, but did not dare to enter within; but when he saw him cut off from the holy flock, he leapt on him more fiercely than any wolf, and did not leave him until he had destroyed him with a double death. These things were written for our admonition. For otherwise what gain is there in knowing that one of the twelve betrayed? What profit? What benefit? Great. For when we learn from where he came to this destructive counsel, we too shall guard against it, so as not to suffer the same. From where, then, did he come to this? From love of money; he was a thief. From this he became so drunk with the passion that he betrayed the Master of the world for thirty pieces of silver. What is worse than this madness? The one to whom nothing is equivalent or equal, before whom the nations are counted as nothing, him he betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. For the tyranny of the love of money is harsh, terrible at driving the soul out of its senses. No one becomes so deranged by drunkenness as by the love of money; not so much by madness and derangement as by the love of money. Why, tell me, do you betray him? You were obscure and unknown, and he called you and made you one of the twelve; he shared his teaching with you; he promised countless good things; he made you work miracles; you shared his table, his journeys, his conversation, his company, everything the others shared. Were these things not enough to restrain you? Why, then, did you betray him? What charge do you have against him, wretch? What kindness did you not receive? He knew your mind, and did not cease contributing his own part. Many times he said, “One of you will betray me”; many times he marked you and spared you; and knowing you to be such, he did not cast you out of the band; he still bore with you, he still honoured you, he still loved you as a genuine disciple and one of the twelve. Finally (what wickedness!) he took a towel and with those undefiled hands washed your defiled feet, and not even this restrained you. You stole the property of the poor; and so that you might not go on to a greater evil, he bore this too; but nothing persuaded you. Even if you had been a wild beast, even if a stone, ought you not to have been changed by the kindnesses shown you, by the miracles, by the teachings? But even when you were so brutish he called you, and through his wonderful works drew you on, you more senseless than stones; yet you became better through none of these things. Perhaps you marvel at the traitor's great folly. Then fear his wound: he became such from love of money, from the passion for wealth. Cut out the passion; for it gives birth to such diseases; it makes people impious and causes them to disregard God, even if we receive countless kindnesses. Cut it out, I beg you; it is no ordinary evil; it knows how to give birth to countless destructive deaths. We have seen his passion; let us fear lest we ourselves fall into the same. That is why it was written, so that we may not suffer the same; that is why all the evangelists recounted this, to bring us to our senses. Flee it from afar. Love of money is not only loving much, but loving money at all. The love of money is terrible, asking for more than one needs. Was it talents of gold that persuaded the traitor then? It was thirty pieces of silver: for thirty pieces of silver he betrayed the Master. Do you remember when I said before that greed is shown not in taking much, but much more in taking little? See how great an evil this man did for a little gold, or rather not for gold but for silver. It is not possible, it is not, for a lover of money ever to see the face of Christ; this is one of the impossible things. It is the root of evils. If someone who has one evil falls from that glory, where will the one who carries the root stand? One who is a slave of money cannot be a genuine slave of Christ. Christ himself declared that the thing is impossible: “You cannot serve God and mammon,” he says; and, “No one can serve two masters.” For they give opposite commands. Christ says, “Spare the poor”; mammon says, “Strip them even of what they have.” Christ says, “Empty out what you have”; mammon says, “Take even what they have.”

Have you seen the opposition, have you seen the war? Do you want us to show how one cannot easily obey both, but must despise one of them? Or is there no need of argument? How? Do we not see it in actions, Christ despised and mammon honoured? Do you see how even the words are burdensome? How much more the deeds? But in deeds they do not appear burdensome in the same way, since we are held by the passion. For now, when the soul is even a little free of the passion, as long as it stands here, it can judge rightly; but when it has gone over there and been seized by the fever and come into the pleasure of the thing, it no longer has a pure judgment, no longer an incorruptible tribunal. Christ says, “Unless one renounces all his possessions, he is not my disciple”; mammon says, “Take the bread from the hungry.” Christ says, “Clothe the naked”; this one says, “Strip the naked.” Christ says, “You shall not disregard those of your own flesh”; mammon says, “You shall not pity those of your own flesh; even if you see your mother, even if your father, despise them.” And why do I speak of father and mother? Destroy even your own soul. … And yet it is obeyed. Alas! That the one who commands cruel, harsh, and savage things is obeyed rather than the one who orders what is gentle and saving for us. That is why there is Gehenna, that is why fire, that is why a river of fire, that is why the undying worm. I know that many do not like hearing us say these things. Nor do I like saying them; for what need is there to say them? I would like always to tell you about the kingdom, the rest, “the water of rest, the place of green pasture”: “By the water of rest,” it says, “he has nourished me; in a place of green pasture, there he has made me dwell.” I would like to speak of the place “where pain and grief and sighing have fled away”; I would like to describe the delight of being with Christ, although it surpasses all speech and all understanding; but even so I would like to speak of these things as far as I can. But what am I to do? It is not possible to speak of a kingdom to one who has a fever and is in a bad state; for the time being one must speak of health. It is not possible to speak of honour to one liable to judgment; for the time being what is sought is to be freed from judgment, from punishment and penalty. If this does not happen, how will that come? That is why I say these things continually, so that we may quickly come to those. For God too threatened Gehenna for this reason, so that no one may fall into Gehenna, so that we may all obtain the kingdom. And we too mention Gehenna continually for this reason, to push you toward the kingdom, to soften your minds by fear and prepare you to do what is worthy of the kingdom. So do not be annoyed at the heaviness of the words; for the heaviness of the words makes our souls light from sins. Iron too is heavy, and the hammer is heavy; but it fashions useful vessels of gold and silver, and straightens what is bent; and if it were not heavy, it could not straighten the bent material. So too our heavy word can set the soul in order. Let us not, then, flee the heaviness of the words, nor the blows that come from them. The blow does not come down to break or crush the soul, but to set it right. We know how to strike, how to bring the blow, by the grace of God, so as not to shatter the vessel, but to smooth it, to straighten it, to make it useful to the Master, so as to present it gleaming with health and finely engraved on that day when the river of fire …, so as to present it not needing the burning there. For if we do not refine you with fire here, you must certainly be put to the fire there, and there is no other way: “For the day of the Lord is revealed in fire.” It is better for you to be burned by our words for a short time than forever by that flame. For that this will certainly happen is clear, and I have often given you unanswerable reasonings. One ought indeed to be persuaded by the Scriptures alone; but since some are contentiously disposed, we have also raised many points from reasoning. And nothing prevents us from stating the same ones now. What were they? God is just: we all admit this, Greeks and Jews and heretics and Christians. But here many who have sinned have departed unpunished, and many who did right have departed having suffered countless terrible things. If, then, God is just, where will he give these their good things, where will he give those their punishments, if there is no Gehenna, if there is no resurrection? Keep repeating this argument, then, to them and to yourselves, and it will not let you disbelieve the resurrection. And the one who does not disbelieve the resurrection will be eager to live with great attention, so as to obtain the eternal good things; which may we all obtain, 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.

“For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” We have spoken about the heretics; now it is timely to state our own view as well. They say that “did not count it robbery” means “to seize”; we have shown that this is altogether stale and absurd, since no one urges humility on this basis, nor so admires God, nor even a man. What, then, does it mean, beloved? Attend now to what is said. Since many people think that when they are humble they are deprived of their own dignity, diminished and lowered, he, removing this fear and showing that one must not be so disposed, says of God that God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, who is in the form of God, who has nothing less than the Father, who is equal to him, “did not count it robbery to be equal with God”. Learn what this means. Whatever one has seized and taken contrary to what is fitting, he does not dare to lay aside, fearing that he may lose it, that he may fall from it, but holds it fast continually; but one who has some natural dignity is not afraid even to come down from that dignity, knowing that he will suffer no such thing. For example, to take one case, Absalom seized the tyranny, and thereafter did not dare to lay it aside. And we will come to another example too. If the examples cannot present the whole, do not be annoyed; for examples are like this: they leave the greater part for the mind to reckon. Someone has risen against a king and seized the kingdom: he does not dare to lay aside or conceal the thing; for if he once conceals it, he is lost at once. Or let us come to some other example: someone has seized something; he holds it continually, for if he lays it aside, he has lost it at once. And in general those who have something by robbery are afraid to lay it aside and conceal it, and not to be continually in the position they are in. But not those who do not have it by robbery; for example, man has the dignity of being rational. I find no example. For there is among us no natural rule; for none of the good things is natural to us, since all have been allotted to the nature of God. What, then, do we say? That the Son of God was not afraid to come down from his dignity; for he did not count the Godhead robbery; he did not fear that anyone might take away his nature or his dignity. That is why he even laid it aside, confident that he would take it up again; and he concealed it, considering that he was in no way diminished by this. That is why he did not say, “He did not seize,” but, “He did not count it robbery”: because he did not hold the rule by having seized it, but as natural, not given, but abiding and secure. That is why he does not refuse even to take the guise of his guardsmen. The tyrant is afraid to lay aside the purple in war, but the king does it with great security. Why? Because he does not hold the rule as robbery. So he did not refuse to lay it aside, as one who had seized it; but as one who held it by nature, and as something that could never depart, he concealed it. This being equal with God he did not hold as robbery, but as natural; that is why he emptied himself. Where are those who say that he submitted to necessity, that he was made subject? “He emptied himself,” he says; “he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death.” How did he empty himself? “Taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man.” Here, with reference to “counting one another better than yourselves”, he said, “he emptied himself”. For if he was made subject, the thing would not even be humility, unless he chose it of himself, unless from himself. For if he did not know that this had to happen, he will be imperfect; if, knowing it, he waited for the time of the command, he will be one who did not know the time; or if he knew both that it had to happen and when it had to happen, why did he wait to be made subject? “To show the Father's superiority.” This does not show the Father's superiority, but his own lowliness. For is not the name of Father enough to show the Father's precedence? For apart from this, everything is the same for the Child. Besides, this honour cannot even pass from the Father to the Son. Apart from this, everything of the Father's is common to the Child.