accumulate upon our heads. I say these things, however, not that we should not approach, but that we should not approach rashly. For just as it is dangerous to approach as one happens to, so is it famine and death not to partake of those mystical suppers. For this table A is the sinew of our soul, the bond of our intellect, the cause of our confidence, [our] hope, salvation, light, and life. Having departed from this sacrifice, we shall clothe ourselves with great confidence at the sacred thresholds, as if fenced about on all sides with golden armor. And why do I speak of the things to come? For here this mystery makes the earth heaven for you. Unfold, then, the gates of heaven and look in; or rather, not of heaven, but of heaven’s heavens, and then you shall see what I have spoken of. For the thing most precious of all there, I will show you lying here on earth. For just as in royal palaces, the most venerable thing of all is not the walls, nor the golden ceiling, but the royal body sitting upon the throne, so also in the heavens is the body of the King. But it is permitted to you to see this on earth. For I am not showing you angels, nor archangels, nor heavens and the heavens of heavens, but B the Master of these very things. Do you see how you behold the most precious thing of all on earth? And you do not only behold, but you even touch; and you do not only touch, but you even eat, and having received [Him], you depart home. Cleanse, therefore, your soul, prepare your mind for the reception of these mysteries. For if you were commanded to carry a royal child along with his finery and purple and diadem, you would have everything that is on earth; but now, when you receive the Only-begotten Son of God Himself, do you not tremble, tell me, and cast out all love of worldly things, and [instead of] adorning yourself only for this world, do you still look toward the earth, and love money, and are you fluttered by gold? And what pardon could you have? What defense? Do you not know how your Master turns away from all the luxury of life? Is it not for this that He was placed in a manger, being born, and took a lowly mother? Is it not for this that He said to that man who looked toward trafficking: *But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head* (Matt. 8:20)? C What then of the disciples? Did they not keep the same law when they lodged in the homes of the poor? And did one take lodging with a tanner, another with a tent-maker? For they sought not the fame of houses, but the virtues of souls. Let us, therefore, emulate them, passing by the beauties of columns and marbles, and seeking the mansions above, and let us trample down all the conceit here with the desire for money, and let us take up a lofty mind. For if we are sober, even this world of ours is not worthy of us, let alone porticos and promenades. Therefore, I entreat you, let us adorn our own souls, which we shall carry [with us] when we depart, so that we may also attain the eternal tabernacles, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
HOMILY XXXV
D Repentance is grievous and formidable to the sinner, a medicine for offenses, an expenditure of tears, a consumption of transgressions, a confidence toward God, a weapon against the devil, a sword cutting off his head, a hope of salvation, an undoing of despair: this opens the heaven, this leads into paradise, this prevails over the devil. Because of this I keep bringing up the discourse about it, so that neither the sinner may despair, nor he who is succeeding think himself great. *For let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall* (1 Cor. 10:12); for it is also the case that being overconfident causes one to be supplanted. Are you righteous? Do not fall. Are you a sinner? Do not despair. I do not cease constantly to apply these medicines to you; for I know what a great weapon against the devil it is for you not to despair. If you have sins, do not despair. I will not cease constantly saying these things; even if you sin daily, repent daily. What do we do in old houses? When they grow rotten, we remove the rotten parts and repair them anew, and we never cease from constant care. If you have grown old today through sin, renew yourself tomorrow through repentance. And is it possible, you say, to be saved by repenting? It is possible, and very possible. I have spent my whole life in sin, and if I repent, am I saved? It is entirely so. Whence is this clear? From the loving-kindness of your Master. For do not rely on your own repentance; for does your repentance have the strength to cleanse away so many evils? If it were repentance alone, you would rightly fear; but since God’s loving-kindness is infused with the repentance, take heart; for there is no measure to God’s loving-kindness, nor can His goodness be interpreted by word. For wickedness indeed has a measure, but the medicine has no measure; your wickedness, whatever it may be, is human wickedness; but the loving-kindness of God is ineffable. Take heart, because it prevails over your wickedness. Consider a spark fallen into the ocean: can it stand or appear? As much as a spark is to an ocean, so much is wickedness to the loving-kindness of God; or rather, not even so much, but much less. For the ocean, even if it is great, has a measure; but God’s loving-kindness is limitless. I say these things, not to make you more sluggish, but to make you more diligent. I have often exhorted you not to ascend to the theater; did you hear, and were you not persuaded? Did you ascend to the theater? Did you disregard my word? Do not be ashamed to enter again and hear. I heard, you say, and did not keep [the word]; how can I enter and hear? For the moment, you know this very thing, that you did not keep it; for the moment you are ashamed, for the moment you blush, for the moment you carry a bridle that reproves no one, for the moment you have my word rooted [within you], for the moment, even when I am not appearing, my teaching corrects you. You did not keep it? Have you condemned yourself? You have kept it halfway, even if you do not keep it, by saying, "I did not keep it." For he who condemns himself for not keeping it, strives toward keeping it. Did you watch? Did you work a transgression? Were you taken captive by the harlot? Did you come down from the theater? Did you remember again? Were you ashamed? Approach. Were you grieved? Call upon God. But do not stop at this: "Woe to me, I heard, and did not keep it; how shall I enter into the church? How shall I hear again?" Enter all the more, since you did not keep it, so that by hearing again you may keep it. If a medicine is applied to you, and it does not cleanse you, do you not apply it again on another day?
Imagine A someone who is a woodcutter and undertakes to fell an oak: he takes up an axe and cuts at the root. If he gives one blow and the tree does not fall, will he not give another? Will he not give a third, a fourth, a fifth, a tenth? So you too must do. The harlot is an oak, a fruitless tree, bearing acorns, the food of irrational pigs; for a long time she has put down roots in your mind and by the spreading of her branches has beaten down your conscience. My word is the axe; you heard it for one day. And will that which has put down roots for so long fall in one day? If we set to work twice, or three times, or a hundred times, it is not to be wondered at; only cut out the wicked and strong thing, and the evil custom. The Jews used to eat manna, and they longed for the onions that were in B Egypt, saying, “It went well with us in Egypt.” Such a strong and most evil thing is custom. And if you behave rightly for ten days, if for twenty, if for thirty, shall I not love you? Shall I not favor you? Shall I not embrace you? Only do not flag, but arise and condemn yourself. I spoke again about the truth: you heard it, and upon leaving you cast it away, you did not manifest the word in your works. Do not be ashamed to enter the church again; be ashamed when you sin, do not be ashamed when you repent and cease to sin. Attend to what the devil has done to you. There are two things, sin and repentance; sin is a wound, repentance is the medicine. In sin there is reproach, in sin there is mockery; in repentance there is confidence, in repentance C there is freedom, in repentance there is the cleansing of sin. Attend diligently. Sin is followed by shame; repentance is followed by confidence. But Satan has inverted the order and given confidence to sin, and shame to repentance. I will not cease until evening until I have solved this matter. There is a wound and medicine; the wound has putrefaction, the medicine possesses a cleansing of the putrefaction. Is there putrefaction in the medicine? Is there healing in the wound? Do these not have their own order; does not that also have its own? Can this be changed into that, and that into this? Let us come also to the sins of the soul. Sin has shame, it has modesty, and it incurs infamy; repentance has confidence, repentance has fasting and justice. “For tell your iniquities first, that you may be justified” (Is. XLIII, 25, 26). “The just man is the first accuser D of himself” (Prov. XVIII, 17). Knowing, therefore, that sin has shame—a thing which can turn one away from sin—and that repentance has confidence—a thing which can attract the penitent—the devil changed the order and gave shame to repentance, and confidence to sin. From where, you ask, I will say. A man is taken as a captive by a grievous desire for a public harlot; he follows the harlot, he enters the brothel without shame, not blushing; he comes together with the harlot and commits sin. Nowhere for him is there fear, nowhere is there reprimand. He departs thence after the sin is finished, and he is ashamed to perform repentance. Wretch, when you were coming together with the harlot, you were not ashamed, and when you come to repentance you are ashamed? He is ashamed to 836 say that he has fornicated, and he blushes; but he performs the act and does not blush, and yet he blushes at the name of the act? This is the cunning of the devil. In sin he does not let him blush but causes him to do it publicly; for he knows that if he blushes, he will flee from the sin; and in repentance he persuades him to blush, for he knows that if he blushes, he will not perform the repentance. He does two evils; he hinders the repentance and draws him to sin. Why do you blush afterwards? When you were fornicating, you were not ashamed; and when the medicine is applied, do you blush? When you are freeing yourself from sin, do you blush? Then you ought to have been ashamed, then it was fitting to blush when you were sinning. When you were becoming a sinner, you were not ashamed, and when you are made just, you blush? “Tell your iniquities first, that you may be justified.” O the kindness of the Lord! He did not say, “That you may not be punished,” but, “That you may be justified.” It did not suffice that he should not be punished, but He even makes him just; and that, exceedingly so. But attend diligently to the sermon. He makes him just. But where did He do this? In the thief: so that he might only say to his friend, “Neither do you fear God? And we indeed justly; for we receive the worth of our deeds,” and He said to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luc. XXIII, 40, 41). He did not say, “I absolve you from the punishment and the penalty”; but He leads the just man into paradise. Do you see the one made just from a confession? God is very merciful; He did not spare His Son, that He might spare the servant; He handed over the Only-begotten, that He might redeem ungrateful servants; He deposited the blood of His Son as the price. O the kindness of the Lord! And do not tell me again, “I have sinned much, and how can I obtain salvation?” You cannot, but your Lord can, and He will so wipe away your sins that not even a trace of them remains. For in bodies this is not the case; but even if a physician applies a thousand cares, even if he applies medicines to the wound, he removes the wound indeed, but he does not delete the scar; for the infirmity of nature, the weakness of the art, and the vileness of the medicines stand against him. But God, when He deletes sins, leaves no scar, nor does He allow a trace to remain; but with health He grants also beauty, and after He has freed one from punishment, He gives justice in addition, and brings it about that he who has sinned is equal to him who has not sinned. Is there any sin that casts one into despair, or that overcomes the kindness of God? And how did Judas perish? How? Because repentance is not done from necessity. And yet hear what the Master says to him: “What shall I do to you, Judas? Do you not know what you are to do? I know, but I do not want to: the nature of sins requires it; but the magnitude of [My] kindness restrains it. What shall I do to you? Shall I spare you? But you will become more slothful. Truly, shall I take vengeance upon you? But My kindness does not sustain that. What shall I do to you? Shall I set you as Sodom, and subvert you as Gomorrah? But I am a father, and a loving father.” Acknowledging this kindness of ours, let us not despair, but let us not rashly be negligent, for both of these are pernicious. For despair does not let him who lies prostrate rise again; slothfulness, however, even casts him down: the former is accustomed to deprive one of the goods granted; the latter does not allow one to be freed from impending evils; and contempt casts one down even from the very heavens; and despair
A casts one down into the very abyss of wickedness; such that one no longer rises again. For that he was good, hear what he says: *I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven* (Luc. 10. 18): the parable of the lightning shows both the brightness of his former behavior, and the swiftness of his fall. Paul was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but because he was zealous and did not despair, he both arose and became equal to the angels. Judas was an apostle, but by becoming slothful he became a traitor. The robber, on the other hand, after so much wickedness, because he did not despair, entered into paradise before all others. The Pharisee, confident in himself, fell from the very height of his virtue; the publican, not despairing, was lifted up so as to surpass even him. Do you wish that I show you an entire city that did this? The city of the Ninevites was thus saved, all of it—even though the sentence cast them into despair. B For he did not say, "If they repent, they shall be saved," but simply, *Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown* (Jon. 3. 4). And yet, though God was threatening, and the prophet crying out, and the sentence having neither delay nor condition, they did not fall into despondency, nor did they abandon their good hopes. For this reason he did not add a condition, nor did he say, "If they repent, they shall be saved," so that we too, when we hear a sentence of God being pronounced without a condition, might not even then despair, looking to that example. For there is no weapon so strong for the devil as despair. For this reason we do not gladden him so much by sinning as we do by despairing. Hear, then, in the case of the fornicator, how Paul feared despair more than the sin itself. Writing to the Corinthians, he spoke thus: *It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the gentiles* (1 Cor. 5. 1). For what is unendurable even to mention to them, C this has been dared in deed by you. *And you are puffed up* (Ibid. v. 2). And he did not say, "And that man is puffed up," but leaving the one who had sinned, he addresses those who are sound, just as physicians do, who leave the sick and spend more words on those who are related to them. Otherwise, these men were also the cause of his arrogance, by not rebuking and not reproving him. He therefore made the crime common, so that the healing of the wound might become easier. For while it is a terrible thing to sin, it is much more grievous to also be boastful about one's sins. For if to be puffed up on account of justice is the emptying out of justice, much more does this happening on account of sins bring the ultimate harm, and the crime is greater than the sins themselves. For this reason he says: *When you have done all, say, We are unprofitable servants* (Luc. 17. 10). If those who do everything ought to be humbled, much more is it fitting for the sinner to both lament and count himself among the very last. Which he was also declaring at that time, saying: *And you are not rather puffed up?* (1 Cor. 5. 2). What are you saying? Another has sinned, and I shall lament? Yes, he says; for we are joined one to another as body and members; and in the case of the body, even if the foot receives a wound, we see the head bowing down; yet what is more honorable than this? But it does not look to its own dignity in the time of calamity; so you do likewise. For this reason Paul exhorts *to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep* (Rom. 12. 15). But as I was saying, observe how Paul fears despair, as a great weapon of the devil. D For having said, *Confirm your love toward him* (2 Cor. 2. 8), he adds the cause: *Lest such a one be swallowed up by overmuch sorrow* (2 Cor. 2. 7). In the throat of the wolf, he says, is the sheep; let us therefore hasten, let us snatch him away beforehand, before he swallows and destroys our member. The ship is now in a storm; before the shipwreck let us strive to save it. For just as when the sea is rising, and waves are cresting on all sides, the hull becomes submerged; so also the soul, with despondency surrounding it on all sides, is quickly stifled, unless it has someone reaching out a hand; and the sorrow that is saving concerning sins, becomes destructive in its lack of measure. Knowing, therefore, what the devil did in the case of Judas, Paul feared lest this should happen here as well. What, then, did he do in the case of Judas? Judas repented—*I have sinned,* he says, *by betraying innocent blood* (Matth. 27. 4). The devil heard these words; he knew he was starting on the road to something better, and was walking toward salvation, and he feared the change. He has a philanthropic Master, he says—if before he was about to betray Him, He wept for him, and gave him infinite admonitions: will He not much more receive him now that he is repenting? He drew him in and called him when he was incorrigible: will He not much more draw him in now that he has been corrected and has recognized his sin? For this reason He even came to be crucified. What, then, did he do? He unsettled him, darkened him with the excess of despondency, pursued him, drove him on, until he brought him to the noose, and removed him from the present life, and deprived him of the zeal that comes with repentance. For that, if he had lived, even he would have been saved, is clear from those who crucified Him. For if He saved those who raised Him onto the cross, and while on the cross itself was beseeching the Father, and asking for forgiveness for them for their daring deed; it is evident that He would have received even the traitor, if he had shown repentance according to the appropriate law, with all kindness. But he could not endure to abide by the medicine, being swallowed up by overmuch sorrow. This, therefore, Paul fearing, urges the Corinthians to snatch the man from the throat of the devil. And what need is there to speak of the Corinthians? Peter, after the communion of the mysteries, denied Him thrice, and weeping, wiped away everything; the harlot appeased the Master with tears; Paul, confessing his sin, became a teacher of those who repent. Having received these plasters, let us heal our own wounds, saying: *Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee* (Jerem. 17. 14, and Ps. 40. 5). For the Physician, having accepted us, will say: *I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will remember them no more* (Isai. 43. 25). See how many medicines the Physician has prepared for you; select whichever one you yourself wish. He has shown you a variety of aids for the difference in wounds. If you are not able to fast, like the Ninevites, at least wash away your sins with tears, like the harlot; if you are not able to give alms, confess your sins; take refuge in the mercy of God, saying with David: *Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy* (Ps. 50. 1). For it is not the bite of a viper, that I might apply a medicinal ointment to it, nor is it a stain produced from mud, that I might wash it off with water; but the wound is from the bite of the devil, needing the mercy of your philanthropy. Only approach requesting; for the Philanthropist will pour on the oil.