SERMO 82
ABOUT THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL MT 18:15-18:
"If your brother sins against you,"
"Rebuke him between you and him alone."
AND ABOUT THE WORDS OF SOLOMON (PROV 10, 10, ACCORDING TO THE LXX).
"Nodding with the eyes with deceit, he accumulates sadness for men."
And the rest.
Preliminary observation.
Our Lord admonishes us not to neglect each other's sins, not by seeking what to criticize, but by seeing what to correct. He indeed said that one has a sharp eye to remove the speck from his brother's eye, who does not have a beam in his own eye. But what this means, I briefly suggest to your Charity. A speck in the eye is anger: a beam in the eye is hatred. Therefore, when one who hates reproves an angry person, he wants to remove the speck from his brother's eye, but he is hindered by the beam, which he himself carries in his own eye. A speck is the beginning of a beam. For, when a beam is born, it is first a speck. By watering the speck, you lead it to become a beam: by nurturing anger with malicious suspicions, you lead it to hatred.
What the difference is between the anger of one who reproves or punishes and hatred.
There is much difference between the sin of the angry and the cruelty of the one who hates. For we also get angry with our children: who is found to hate their children? Even in the case of animals, sometimes a mother cow turns away the suckling calf out of a certain annoyance, angered: but she embraces it with a mother's affection. She seems to annoy it when she pushes it away: yet it is sought after if it is missing. Nor do we otherwise give discipline to our children, except by somewhat getting angry and showing indignation: yet we would not give discipline unless we loved them. Thus not everyone who gets angry, hates; so much so that sometimes one is proved to hate more if they do not get angry. For consider a boy wanting to play in the river, in whose current they might perish: if you see this and patiently allow it, you hate; your patience is his death. How much better is it to get angry and correct him, than to allow him to perish without getting angry? Therefore, hatred must be avoided above all, the beam must be taken out of the eye. For there is a great difference when someone in anger exceeds the measure of a word, which afterward they erase by repenting; and it is another thing to keep hidden snares in the heart. Finally, much difference lies between these words of Scripture: "My eye is troubled because of anger." But what is said about that one? "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer." There is much difference between a troubled eye and an extinguished one. A speck troubles, a beam extinguishes.
Hatred harms him who hates more than the other.
Therefore, let us first persuade ourselves, so that what we were admonished about today, we may be able to do well and fulfill, above all not to hate. For then, when the plank is not in your own eye, you rightly see whatever is in your brother's eye; and you suffer until you remove from your brother's eye what you see to be harming his eye. The light that is in you does not allow you to neglect the light of your brother. For if you hate and wish to correct, how do you amend the light, having lost the light? For Scripture also clearly says in the same place where it is written: "He who hates his brother is a murderer." It says, "He who hates his brother is in darkness until now." Hatred is darkness. Moreover, it cannot happen that he who hates another does not harm himself first. For he tries to harm the other externally but devastates himself internally. As much as our soul is greater than the body, so much more should we take care that it is not harmed. But he who hates another harms his own soul. And what will he do to him whom he hates? What will he do? Take away money, but does he take away faith? Harm reputation, but does he harm conscience? Whatever harms, harms externally. Consider what harms yourself. For internally he is his own enemy who hates another. But because he does not feel what evil he does to himself, he rages against another, living all the more dangerously by not feeling what evil he does to himself; for by raging, he has lost his sense. You raged against your enemy: while you raged, he was stripped, you were unjust. There is much difference between being naked and being unjust. He lost money, you lost innocence. Ask who has suffered the graver loss. He lost a perishable thing, you became perishable.
With what spirit a brother is to be corrected.
Therefore, we ought to rebuke with love; not with eagerness to harm, but with the intent to correct. If we are such, we excellently do what we are admonished today: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him between you and him alone. Why do you rebuke him? Because you are pained that he sinned against you? Far be it. If you do it for your own sake, you do nothing. If you do it for his sake, you do excellently. Finally, consider from the very words whose love you ought to do it for, whether yours or his. If he listens to you, he says, you have gained your brother. Therefore, do it for his sake, so that you gain him. If by doing this you gain him, he would have been lost if you had not done it. Why then do many people disregard these sins and say: What great thing have I done? I sinned against a man. Do not disregard it. You have sinned against a man: do you want to understand that by sinning against a man you perish? If he against whom you sinned rebukes you between you and him alone, and you listen to him, he has gained you. What does it mean, he has gained you; except that you would have perished if he had not gained you? For if you had not perished, how did he gain you? Therefore, let no one disregard it when they sin against a brother. For the Apostle says in one place: Thus, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ: because we have all become members of Christ. How do you not sin against Christ when you sin against a member of Christ?
The remedy for this sin.
Therefore, let no one say, "I have not sinned against God, but I have sinned against my brother, against a man: it is a slight sin, or no sin at all." Perhaps you say, "It is slight because it is quickly healed." You have sinned against your brother: make amends, and you are healed. You have quickly done a deadly thing, but you quickly found the remedy. Who among us hopes for the kingdom of heaven, my brothers, when the Gospel says: "Whoever says to his brother, Fool, shall be liable to the hell of fire"? Great terror; but see the remedy there: "If you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar." God is not angry because you delay presenting your gift: He seeks you more than your gift. For if you come to your God with a bad mind against your brother, carrying a gift, He answers you: "You are lost, what have you brought to me?" You offer your gift, and you are not God's gift. Christ seeks more whom He redeemed with His blood than what you found in your barn. Therefore, leave your gift there before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to your brother; and thus coming, you will offer your gift. See how quickly the guilt of hell is dissolved. Not yet reconciled, you were guilty of hell: reconciled, you safely offer your gift at the altar.
Forgiveness must be sought from the one whom you have harmed.
However, men are quick to inflict injuries and slow to seek reconciliation. "Ask," he says, "forgiveness from the man whom you have offended, from the man whom you have hurt." He responds: "I will not humble myself." Listen to your God, even if you scorn your brother: "He who humbles himself will be exalted." Do you not wish to humble yourself, you who have fallen? There is a great difference between someone who is humbling himself and someone who is lying down. You are already lying down, and you do not wish to humble yourself? You might have rightly said, "I do not wish to descend," if you had not wished to fall.
What must be done by him who has suffered an injury.
Therefore, this is what the one who has acted unjustly should do. But what should the one who has suffered do? What we have heard today: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him privately, just between the two of you. If you ignore this, you are worse. He committed the injustice, and by doing so, inflicted a grave wound upon himself: do you ignore your brother's wound? Do you see him perishing, or having perished, and neglect him? You are worse by being silent than he is by reviling. When then someone sins against us, we should have great care, not for ourselves; for it is glorious to forget injuries: but forget your injury, not your brother's wound. Therefore, rebuke him privately, just between the two of you, aiming for correction, sparing his shame. For perhaps due to shame, he begins to defend his sin, and whom you want to make better, you make worse. Therefore, rebuke him privately, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother: for he would have perished if you did not act. But if he does not listen to you, that is, if he defends his sin as if it were righteousness, bring along one or two others with you; because every matter is to be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he does not listen to them, tell it to the Church: if he does not listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Do not consider him any longer among the number of your brothers. Even so, his salvation should not be neglected. Although we do not count Gentiles and Pagans among the number of brothers, we nevertheless always seek their salvation. Therefore, we have heard the Lord advising in this way and prescribing with such care, so as to add immediately: Amen I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. You begin to regard your brother as a tax collector, binding him on earth: but make sure you bind justly. For unjust bonds are broken by justice. However, when you have corrected him and reconciled with your brother, you have loosed him on earth. When you loose on earth, he will be loosed in heaven. You do much good, not to yourself, but to him; for he has harmed himself greatly, not you, but himself.
The Gospel is reconciled with Solomon. The harmony of the Old and New Testament.
Since these things are so, what is it that Solomon says, which we first heard today from another reading: "Nodding the eyes with sorrow, he heaps up sadness for men: but he who rebukes openly, makes peace"? If therefore he who rebukes openly, makes peace; how is it: "Rebuke him between you and him alone"? It must be feared that the divine precepts are not contrary to themselves. But let us understand that there is supreme concord there, not as some vainly suppose, who err sadly thinking that the two Testaments in the Old and New Books are contrary to each other: so as to think that this is contrary, because it is in the book of Solomon, this in the Gospel. For if some unskilled and slanderous critic of the Divine Scriptures were to say, "Behold where the two Testaments contradict each other. The Lord says: Rebuke him between you and him alone. Solomon says: He who rebukes openly, makes peace. Does the Lord therefore not know what He prescribes? Solomon wants the forehead of the sinner to be crushed; Christ spares the shame of the blushing one. For it is written there: He who rebukes openly, makes peace: here however: Rebuke him between you and him alone; not publicly, but secretly and in private. Do you want to know, whoever thinks such things, that the two Testaments do not contradict each other, because one is found in the book of Solomon, the other in the Gospel? Hear the Apostle. Certainly the Apostle is a minister of the New Testament. Therefore, hear the Apostle Paul instructing Timothy and saying: "Rebuke those who sin before all, that others also may fear." Now it seems not the book of Solomon with the Gospel, but the Epistle of the Apostle Paul seems to conflict. Let us set Solomon aside for a moment without offense: let us hear Christ the Lord and Paul His servant. What do you say, Lord? "If your brother sins against you, rebuke him between you and him alone." What do you say, Apostle? "Rebuke those who sin before all, that others also may fear." What do we do? Do we hear this controversy as if judges? God forbid. Rather, being placed under judgment, let us knock, so that it may be opened to us: let us flee under the wings of the Lord our God. For He did not speak contrary to His Apostle, because He spoke in him too, as He says: "Do you want to receive proof of Christ who speaks in me?" Christ in the Gospel, Christ in the Apostle: Christ therefore said both; one with His own mouth, the other with the mouth of His herald. For when the herald says something from the tribunal, it is not written in the Acts that the herald said: but it is written that he said it, who ordered the herald what to say.
Correction must sometimes be secret, sometimes public.
Therefore, brothers, let us hear these two precepts in such a way that we understand, and let us be established peacefully between the two precepts. Let us be in agreement with our hearts, and Scripture is in no way discordant. It is truly so, both are true indeed: but we must discern that sometimes this, sometimes that, is to be done; sometimes a brother should be corrected between you and him alone, sometimes a brother should be corrected in the presence of all, so that the others may also have fear. If we do this sometimes and that other times, we will maintain the harmony of the Scriptures, and in doing and obeying, we will not err. But someone says to me: When do I do this, when that: lest I correct between me and him alone when I ought to correct in the presence of all; or then correct in the presence of all, when I ought to correct in private?