On the Text: "The Pharisees Went Out

[GREEK COLUMN] 705 …table, you who prepared for the whole land of Israel to be barren, and made even the widow herself barren, fruitless, and unproductive, yet you reject the table of the widow? So that Elijah would hear none of this, he immediately departed for the Sidonians, seeking comfort, or perhaps sorrow. ^A Listen to what follows. Elijah, having been received in hospitality by the widow, found a table that was not costly, but authentic, appropriate, and ascetic—water, oil, flour, and two small pieces of wood. What then? Did the widow have only two small pieces of wood? Yes. How? Listen, and I will tell you. This widow mentioned carried the image of the Church; that is why the prophet is sent to her. When the prophet entered the widow’s house, he truly found the deposit of our Church; he found water, oil, flour, and two small pieces of wood. Water, the baptism; oil, the chrism; flour, the Bread; two small pieces of wood, the accomplishment of the Cross. And Elijah, crying out to the widow, said: The jar of oil shall not fail, and the pitcher of flour shall not cease. For the grace of the orthodox faith is inexhaustible. ^B Therefore, having found the widow’s inexpensive table, Elijah was gladdened and rejoiced, saying to himself: "Here I will live from now on; here I will spend all my time. For I have found a suitable table; no concern have I for the house of Ahab, or for the people of Israel, or for the madness of Jezebel. Let them have the lack of rain as their inheritance; but I shall not depart from here at all." Elijah was saying these things, reckoning joyfully to himself, not knowing, as a man, that in his joy he was about to find sorrow. You all know how the widow, having two genuine children born of the same womb, having arisen at dawn from her bed, sees one of her sons surrendered to death. That it is natural for a widow to be distraught over a grown son dying, none of you is ignorant; for she considers the life of the child more glorious than all the wealth of the world. ^C For the woman did not sit by the dead as was the custom, nor did she perform funeral rites, nor was she occupied with the procession, but leaving her dead, she seized Elijah, holding him, dragging him about, lamenting, crying out before everyone: "What is there between me and you, man of God? Have you come to me to remind me of my sins, and to put my son to death?" That is to say: "You put him to death." Do you see how Elijah’s joy turned into sorrow? He was held as a murderer; for thus the widow was saying: "What is there between me and you, man of God? You entered toward me to remind me of my sins, to put my son to death. You put him to death; your entry caused this. Did you not find my child ill? Did he not fall sick for even one day? Your entry provided for the death of my son. What good did you do me by granting me flour, while his eater is no longer present? Give me back my son; you put him to death, wishing to inherit my house. Take the flour back, and give me back my son. Do you want to feed me, yet murder my child? I would rather starve with my own than grow rich with strangers. What is there between me and you, man of God? You entered toward me to remind me of my sins and to put my son to death. ^D You put my son to death, you appear to me as a harsh one; is not your entry unjust? Tell me, what shall I do? Did you flee your God? Did you perform the deeds of Jonah? You appear to me as one cruel. You breathe fire, you shed blood, you bear a drought, you bring about the destruction of fifty-men-commanders; for your deeds have become known to me. Is it not enough that you have strangled your own kin, but you have come here to perform the same things? You played tricks on many, but you will not play tricks on me; give me my son." What then did Elijah do? He was immediately bowed; for he knew the decree of the Lord. Therefore, having groaned greatly, as one defeated, he cried out saying: "Woe is me, Lord! The witness of the widow, with whom I dwell, you have brought misery upon her by putting to death her son; the deed is yours, for I knew it, Master. Behold, I am coerced by a widow; for you always send me to the harshest women. I fled Jezebel, and have fallen into this one. I endured many trials, but I cannot bear the tongue of this woman. You are the one who said to me, Master: 'Go to Zarephath of Sidon; behold, I shall command a widow woman to sustain you there.' And behold, she is turning me away; for she is not sustaining me. I am held as a murderer; and well am I held, for the boy was lively at my entry; how then he was suddenly delivered to death, I do not know. Deliver me, Lord, from this harassment; she has turned me into a theater, she has brought shame upon me, she has brought upon me great affliction. Give back the soul, and I provide the rain; satisfy the widow, and I shall irrigate the land; give back the boy’s life, and I shall stir my tongue toward the rain-giving." These things, however, are because of the aforementioned resurrection of Lazarus, and the objection of the Jews, that the Master has authority in one way, and the servant raises in another. Elijah raised the dead, but he did not have full authority; for he was able to do much, yet he was afflicted and fell into distress. Therefore he cried out in prayer saying: "Woe is me!" Where there is "woe," there is sorrow of soul. Just so, elsewhere you will find the prophet lamenting and saying: "Woe is me! For I have been left as one gathering stubble in the harvest, and as an olive-gleaning in the vintage." And again, another prophet: "Woe, woe for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it is as destruction." And again another: "Woe is me! For it has perished from the earth." Everywhere "woe" signifies sorrow. Thus also Elijah here: "Woe is me, Lord! The witness of the widow, you have brought misery upon her by putting to death her son." And he breathed into the child three times. See therefore here how, in the law of grace, the mystery is portrayed. For, "He breathed three times" represents the entry of the undivided Trinity. And he invoked God, and said: "Let the soul of the child return into him, I pray, Lord." And it was so. What do you say, O Jew? Does the Lord do nothing like Elijah? Does Elijah do nothing like the Lord? Did the Lord bend a knee? Did He prolong the prayer? For to Him all prayer is sent back; He uttered one voice, "Lazarus, come out," as a master calling a servant. What then? Did he come out like a servant obeying a master? He came out, he did not delay, Hades did not wait, death did not rebel, the powers below did not hesitate; but rather, they were astonished. For Hades, having Lazarus already for four days in his own regions, dissolved on all sides like a boat without nails, was henceforth careless; the powers below did not have the thought that Lazarus would be snatched from the nether regions. But when the Master’s voice suddenly descended into the tomb with much light ^A and began to quickly replant the hairs of Lazarus on his head, to insert marrow into the emptiness of the hollow bones, to direct the fullness of the veins toward life-giving blood, the powers below were astonished, crying out to each other: "Who is this who calls? Who is this who has authority? Who is this who remakes dissolved dust? Who is this who awakens the dead as if from sleep? Who is this who shatters adamant gates? Who is this who cries, 'Lazarus, come out'? The voice is human-sounding, but the power is divine-power. Who is this who calls? He is not a man; the form is of a man, but the voice is of God. Let us send forth Lazarus, let us quickly send him out, lest the one calling him descend here; lest, if he delays, the one calling descends here." The dead began to be shaken and to move. "Let us suffer the loss of one," they said, "and not lose everyone." Thus Lazarus leaped out from the bosom of Hades, praising and blessing and glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ. Here let us seal our discourse; gathering the branches of palms, let us go forth to meet the Lord, crying out and saying: "Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." To Him be the glory and the power unto the ages.

On this, "The Pharisees went out and took counsel." (Matt 12.14)

not kneaded by hand, not cooked by fire, but which the virgin earth brought forth without plow or seed, which the cross made ripe, the Father perfected, and the twelve baskets of the apostles gathered. Mary brought forth this bread, the Church received it, and it is eaten by us daily, yet it is not consumed. While this bread was set before you at my moderate table, I wished to restrain my tongue in silence; but the snares prepared by the Jews, the enemies of God, against our Savior would compel even the very stones to speak. For what were we hearing, just as it was being read? “And the Pharisees went out,” it says, “and took counsel against Jesus, that they might destroy him.” And for what reason do they consult to destroy the Lord? Because he had healed a man on the Sabbath day; and because he had stretched forth an idle and withered hand to work on the day of rest. O the stupidity of the Jews, who do not consider that it was fitting for the right hand of Adam, which had touched the wood in paradise and become withered from transgression, to be reformed again by its Potter; that it was fitting for that right hand, which had been defiled by the devil through the shedding of blood for the worship of idols, to be stretched forth again by its Creator to heaven, bright and whole! But they take offense at the benefit rendered to a man and at the salvation of a soul: they teach the rest of the Sabbath, while they are ignorant of the miraculous operation of Jesus. Why, O Pharisees, were you not offended, nor did you concern yourselves with such things against Manasseh, when he sawed Isaiah asunder, when he sacrificed your sons and daughters to demons, and changed the houses of God into temples of idols? Why did you not enter into such counsel against Herod, when he unjustly slaughtered infants and left mothers childless? When it was possible to see infants like unripe ears of corn lying in one carnage, when they did not yet possess a firm grain of heart, nor began to put forth hair, but were still occupied with the tenderest nourishment of milk, killed by Herod as if by the violent fury of a hail-storm? When the crying and lamentation of men and women were heard in the squares and alleys of the city, with the fathers’ spirits crushed, and the mothers with disarranged hair grieving heavily over the unjust slaughter of the immature infants? When Bethlehem contracted a redness from the blood of the infants, and the immature must of premature grapes was mixed with the fervent tears of parents? When the faces of the fathers were distorted by howling, and the vitals of the mothers were twisted with pain, and the fountains of milk in their breasts were dried up before their time? When the spirit in the mothers’ chests, moved narrowly, was emitted through the nostrils in disorder? When the eyes of fathers and mothers were joined in fountains of water, and they let fall the silver drops of gushing tears down their cheeks to the ground? When women insanely tore their own hair with their nails, and locks that they should have covered, they displayed in their drunken grief? But since you think the contrary, you do the contrary; you release murderers and bloodthirsty men, you punish the innocent and the just, even though the Law says: “The innocent and the just you shall not kill” (Exod. 23. 7). O disordered order, and illegitimate law, sent by the devil, written by demons, and observed by the Jews until now. What kind of law is that, to save murderers, but to destroy him who restored life to the slain? For they asked Pilate to release Barabbas, who was caught in sedition and murder; but they demanded that Jesus, who raised those who had been slain by the devil, be crucified. “And the Pharisees went out,” it says, “and took counsel to destroy him.” O sentence without sense, and counsel unconsidered! The Fountain of blessings poured forth benefits upon them like a river; but they, while they were drawing grace, belched forth bloodthirsty counsels from their hearts. Those who were riddled with wounds were being healed; but they, although not riddled in body, were aching from being riddled by envy. Their fellow tribesmen, who were hungry in the desert, were fed to satisfaction; and they were perishing in the abundance of faith because of infidelity. Water was being changed into wine; and they, not tasting the wine, were carried about drunk with envy. They saw the flow of blood of the hemorrhaging woman stopped; and they were melting away, wasting from malice. Those of them possessed by demons, being set free by the demons, were being restored to sanity; and they, moved by envy, were raging more than the demons: their blind men, deprived of the use of their eyes, were being enlightened; and they, having eyes, were being darkened: the ear-passages of the deaf, as we just heard, were being opened; and their dark heart was agitating counsels of slaughter. The sea, repressing its waves, was preparing itself to sustain the passage of the Lord; and their heart was emitting the deadly waves of its reasonings like foam from its mouth. The most grave winds turned a violent storm of waves into a gentle breeze and calm; and they, moved by the waves of envy, stirred up the tempest of the cross. O envy, root of death, perplexed sickness of the heart, most sharp nail! For what nail, however sharp, penetrates so as to wound the very heart affected by envy? What disease takes away the beauty of the countenance so as to make the fragrant flower of the soul, charity, wither like envy? Water extinguishes fire, but not even the fountains of a thousand doctors soothe envy: one removes the rust of iron, but the five stones of David increased the envy of Saul. The lizard is said to be pale, but it is not paler than the envious. For just as a worm gradually gnawing the heart of wood dries it up; so also envy, gradually gnawing the heart of the envious man, dries it up. And whatever, beloved, we have said about envy, we have not even made a beginning of describing its wickedness: whether the language of rhetoricians, or the words of philosophers, or the utterances of doctors are employed, they will not be able to recount it. The fullness of the Law, therefore, is the love of the Word; the fullness of wickedness is envy. O envy, boat coated with pitch, hellish, bringing shipwreck! Your shipmaster is the devil, the governor the serpent, steering the prow is Cain. For the devil handed over to you the deposit of evils: the serpent, however, as governor, led Adam into the shipwreck of death: Cain indeed leads the prow, because for your sake, O envy, he first committed murder. Your mast, however, is from the beginning in paradise, disobedience concerning the wood; the ropes are the chains of sins; the passengers are the envious; the sailors, demons; the oars, deceits; the raised seats of the prow, hypocrisy; those standing there, the envious. O skiff bringing a thousand evils! If you seek hypocrisy, it is found there; if deceit, it is born there. Envy dwells there, enmities, fights, fallacies, reviling, cursing, blasphemy, and whatever else we might say or pass over; all these things that hellish boat of envy carries. The deluge could not submerge this boat of envy; but Jesus, by the power of the Spirit in baptism, sank it. This boat had iron anchors, but they coalesced into the nails of Christ: it also had a mast, but the devil fashioned it into the wood of the cross: it had ropes, but with these taken, Judas strangled himself. Boarding this boat, the Jews, striking against the rock, suffered shipwreck concerning the faith. Therefore, the Jews still swim in the deep of ignorance. Nevertheless, as many of them as can hold to the Christ-bearing boat are saved; the others, however, perish in the salty destruction of incredulity. Would that those wallowing in the deep might flee to Jonah and the whale! For perhaps, instructed by him in the pious religion toward Christ, living with Jonah, they might be cast from the whale into Nineveh. But now, closing the eyes of the heart, they do not flee to him, seeing him shining in the midst of the world with pious religion and splendidly displaying the faith: nor do they betake themselves to John, the herald of repentance, that they may live. “And the Pharisees went out,” it says, “and took counsel how they might destroy him.” The Pharisees went out: from where? Not from envy, but from the Law. For if they had not gone out from the Law, they would not have treated the Legislator with contumely. And the Pharisees went out: from where? From the Law which says: “The innocent and the just you shall not kill” (Exod. 23. 7). And the Pharisees went out: from where? From the commandment of God illuminating the eyes of the heart. For “the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes” (Ps. 18. 9). And the Pharisees went out and took counsel how they might destroy him. And the Pharisees went out: from where? From the commandment, from the Law, from life. For those who plot death for another, they themselves are the first to depart from the light of life. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel. From whom they went out the writer does not say, so that he might direct our mind to inquire into the matter.

^A the sheep. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him, how they might destroy him. "And the Pharisees went out." From where? From the commandment, from the Law, from life. For they who devise death for another are the first to let go of the light of life. "And the Pharisees went out and took counsel." And the writer does not say from whom, stirring up our own mind to inquiry. "And the Pharisees went out and took counsel." From whom? It is clear: from the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning. "And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him." The "how"—in what manner? By stone? By sword? By fire or water? And their counselor, the devil, recalling the wood from the beginning, through which he killed Adam, flees again to it, and counsels them to crucify Jesus on a piece of wood. He was ignorant that that wood was about to undo the ancient transgression of the wood and to cause life to spring up for men. "And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him." O most wicked counsel, sown through envy and tested through envy! O vain plan! For they are ignorant that God is not destroyed. They will dissolve the earthen lamp of the body, but they cannot extinguish his unquenchable torch of divinity. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him. O marvelous thing, and new mystery! Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost, and these seek to destroy the finder of the lost. For what cause, tell us, Jews, do you counsel such things against him? But they are ashamed to speak; we shall denounce their shame everywhere. For why, he says, does he raise the dead? And why does he heal the infirm? Why does he speak what is good? Why does he do what is good? Why does he teach what is good? For these are all the charges [764] for which they counsel to destroy him. When innocent children go forth taking palm branches, proclaiming his victory through the branches, and saying in his praise, "Hosanna in the highest," they, being pricked by the stings of envy, are pierced; for the praises of the envied are darts for the envious. And they approach Jesus and say to him, "Do you not hear what these are saying?" And they did not know that what was written was being prophetically fulfilled: "Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise" (Ps. VIII, 2). When Jezebel was making forged letters against Naboth, you gladly endured it; when Pilate writes good words upon the title, you are indignant, and hinder it from being written. For what do they say? "Write not, that he is the King of the Jews." Write not—instead of, "The truth." Write not—so that no one may be benefited, so that no one may be made whole unto piety. They were surely not so indignant against those who wrote the dramas of the stage-players, nor even now do the many attend to the songs of the demons. And they do not grieve about those things, but about the divine teachings they grieve because they are written. And is there not anything worse than every evil, that the monologues of Philistion are written, but the doxologies of Jesus are not written, through which we are led to heaven? But if there were indeed some novice among the ^B teachers in speech, yet speaking the things of God, would it not be better that his words be written than the demon-inspired mythologies of the Greeks? For it is profitable for the youth to be educated, chanting in the sayings of the theologians, even if they happen to be simple, possessing a blameless mind, and not being engaged in the teachings of the demons to go raving into lasciviousness. "Write not." Why, "Write not"? For what does it harm you? And of what wealth does the writing of the truth deprive you? Another, by the eagerness of what was written, did not feel pain in his hand, yet they beat their breasts. But if even the Pharisees said these things to Pilate, and hindered him from writing the letters of truth, he, even though he was a Gentile, said to them, "What I have written, I have written" (John XIX, 22). This teaching also is fitting for us, so that when heretics advise us to depart from the faith, we may say to them: "What we have written, we have written." And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him. But Jesus knew and withdrew from thence. He knew, not having learned from another, but having known from himself; for he was, and is, the Knower of hearts, just as John the evangelist also says: "For he had no need," he says, "that anyone should tell him about a man" (John II, 25). But Jesus knew and withdrew from thence, not fearing death, but awaiting the time of the cross. For it was necessary for him first to raise the dead, to heal the infirm, to fill many who were hungry, to strengthen many in the faith, and then to come to that celebrated death, or rather, bridal chamber. It was necessary for him first to set up the wood of the mystery of the cross, and then with fervent Spirit to run to those lying in Hades. ^C But Jesus knew and withdrew from thence. Where guile appears not, he flees; where murder is plotted, he withdraws; where love is woven, both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit dwell. Let us weave, therefore, beloved, the threefold love, not with deceitful tongues, but with manifest hands; so that Emmanuel may be with us, to whom be glory and power unto the ages of ages. Amen.

On the Harlot and the Pharisee

Today the Pharisee called the Master to a banquet, having mingled an insult with the honor; but the harlot entertained him with faith. For when he was in the house of Simon, behold, a harlot woman (Mark XIV, 3). A mad spectacle, a harlot in the city, the war within the walls, the arrow without iron, the birdlime of youth, the sharpening-stone of desire, the arousal of the passions, the trade of the body, the fruitless business, the harmful traffic, which brings death both to the seller and the buyer, the net of youth, the uncovered trap. For the eye of a harlot is a snare of sinners; the inn of lasciviousness, that which sells herself, and leads those who buy her into slavery, the many-headed lioness, the stench of the city, the pestilence that creeps against every sense, the hook of the eyes, the wandering death, the market of destruction, the desire of perdition, the scent of death, the many-trodden gangrene. Behold a woman in the city, the ruin of the inhabitants, the tyranny of marriages, the overthrow of chastity, the war of husbands and wives, the table of wasteful spending, the emptying of purses, the outflow of money, the loss of labors, the winepress of heirs, which those who tread the winepress danced for their own nakedness. Behold a woman in the city, who was a sinner (Luke VII, 37). But that sinner ran to righteousness, and like thorns in fire, she consumed her sins. The thicket became a paradise, the lioness a lamb, the stench myrrh, the destruction treasure, the crow a dove, the harlot a virgin, a sister of Christ, ^D a bride of the Word. For standing behind Jesus, the disciple of the woman with the issue of blood, she wet his feet with tears, and wiped them with her hair, and kissed the traces with her lips, and anointed them with precious myrrh. All the weapons of sin she offered to the King, begging for peace; and the