Chapter 5
[James 5:1] -- Come now, you rich, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming upon you. Now, while it is the acceptable time, while it is the day of salvation (II Cor. VI), avoid, he says, the future miseries of punishment by weeping and giving alms. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. Not only does the visible fire of Gehenna torment and torture the wicked and merciless rich, but also the very memory of their decayed and useless riches, with which they could very easily redeem their sins, will burn their souls no less before judgment, and their flesh after the resurrection, when they begin to be intensely angry with themselves because they did not wish to wash away their sins with alms. Finally, the rust of wealth was a testimony to the wickedness of that rich man clothed in purple and turned into an increase of punishment, when through Abraham's reproach he heard: "Son, remember that you received your good things in your lifetime, and Lazarus likewise evil things" (Luke XVI). Even the carnal delights themselves can be understood by the name of the flesh, which the rust of wealth eats like fire, while the flame raging outside torments the luxurious soul, and not less piercing inwardly the pain of its tenacity accuses. This often happens even in this life, that some, losing wealth they used badly, begin too late to feel the sorrow that they had them without profit, and then groan that they did not give their goods to the needy when they are themselves compelled to beg due to impending need.
[James 5:3] -- You have stored up wrath for yourselves in the last days. Because, having neglected the nakedness or hunger of the poor, you rejoiced in storing up treasures of money for yourselves, now, not having foreseen it, you have accumulated the wrath of the eternal Judge against yourselves. Although it has not yet appeared, in the last days it is already most certain, that is, when the end of temporal days has come.
[James 5:4] -- Behold, the wages of the workers who have reaped your fields, which were withheld by you, cry out. How great is the iniquity of the proud, who, although they have sufficient wealth, not only disdain to welcome and refresh the poor coming everywhere, but also refuse to give the due wages of their work to the laborers or their servants. This fault of impiety the blessed Job indicates that he took great care to avoid, as he says: If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together, if I have eaten its fruits without money, and afflicted the soul of its tillers, let thorns grow instead of wheat, and thistles instead of barley (Job 31). And their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. He calls the Lord of Hosts to instill fear in those who think that the poor have no protector. But to this place suits that of the Psalmist: "For the poor are left to you, you will be a helper to the orphan" (Psa. Heb. 10). And what is written in the book of the blessed Job: "For God will not hear in vain, and the Almighty will consider the causes of each one" (Job 35). You have feasted on the earth. Having neglected the heavenly joys to which you could have come through afflictions and fasts, you only love carnal feasts, which will be followed by such great hunger and thirst in the future, that not even a single drop of water can then be obtained from elsewhere to cool your burning tongue.
[James 5:5] -- And in luxury you have nourished your hearts. They nourish their hearts in luxury, who, according to that saying of Ecclesiastes, do not forbid their heart to enjoy every pleasure and to amuse itself with those things they have prepared. And this they take as their part, if they use their own works, having no care for the sustenance or amusement of the poor (Eccl. II). On the day of slaughter you have led and killed the just man, and he did not resist you. He calls the Lord Savior just, about whom the blessed first martyr Stephen also speaks to the same Jews: Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute, and killed those who announced the coming of the Just One? of whom you have now been the betrayers and murderers (Acts VII). Therefore it appears that the blessed James addresses those rich men from that place, where he says: Come now, you rich, weep and howl, who conspired for the death of the Lord, and yet have not accepted the faith of his name by which they might be saved. Of whom he also speaks above to the believers: Do not the rich oppress you through repentance, and they themselves drag you into courts? Do they not blaspheme that good name that has been invoked upon you (James II)? And because he writes to the twelve tribes that are in dispersion, he thus urges the faithful to do works of faith, so that he may also persuade those who had not yet believed to convert to the faith of the Lord along with the works of faith, reminding them that they had killed the Son of God, and moreover, as if they had done nothing evil, they gave themselves over to luxury and avarice, nor did they care to amend such a crime with repentance and alms. To whom it properly applies what he says: That avarice will consume their flesh like fire, and because they have treasured up wrath for themselves in the last days. For this became evident in them after the killing of James himself, when the city of Jerusalem, indeed the whole province of Judea, was besieged and cleared by the Romans, and for the rest of their crimes they had committed. Therefore be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. After he had rebuked the proud and incredulous, he again turns to those who had been oppressed by the wickedness of such men, exhorting them to patience, and insinuating that the end of such pressures is near, whether by them being taken up to the Lord and receiving the fruit of their patience, or by their persecutors being deprived of the power to persecute. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, patiently enduring until he receives the early and the latter rain, etc. If he for the fruit of the earth, which he expects, and hopes to obtain in due season, labors so patiently, how much more ought you, for the fruit of heavenly reward, which you can possess forever, endure all present adversities? For you will indeed receive the early fruit, namely the life of the soul after death. You will also receive the latter, the incorruption of the flesh at the judgment. Or certainly the early fruit in works of righteousness, the latter in the reward of labors, according to that of the Apostle: You have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life (Rom. VI). Do not groan, brothers, against one another, so that you may not be judged. As if you suffer greater adversities than you deserve, and your persecutors, though they have committed the greatest crimes, seem to endure nothing adverse. So that you may not be judged. By the judgment of condemnation, because you reproach this judge as if he judged unjustly.
[James 5:9] -- Behold, the Judge stands at the door. He will return to you the rewards of patience, and to your adversaries the punishment they deserve. He stands at the door, because either He is close to knowing everything you do, or He will come quickly to repay, to you and to your persecutors, what each one has deserved. Take as an example, brothers, the outcome of evil, and of longsuffering, and of labor, and of patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. See, he says, that the prophets who were so holy, so free from sins, so that the Spirit of God spoke through them His mysteries to men, had an evil end by suffering death from the faithless, such as Zechariah, Uriah, and the Maccabee martyrs. And in the New Testament, John, Stephen, James the son of Zebedee, and many others. Nevertheless, they did not lament over such an end, but rather wished to bear it with long-suffering. Others endured long labors, but they bore these patiently and without grumbling, like Noah in the building of the ark for a hundred years, Moses in the redemption and leadership of the people for forty years, David in suffering exile without fault, Joseph in service taken deceitfully by his brothers. To both cases, however, he added a firm and immutable example saying: You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord. You have learned by reading about the labor and patience of Job, and how he received double of everything he lost due to the enemy's deceit, through the mercy of the Lord. You also saw the end of the Lord on the cross which He patiently endured, but also learned by evangelical preaching of His glory in the resurrection and ascension to heaven. Because the Lord is merciful and compassionate. So that either He may deliver His own from temptations in the present life, and glorify those living for the steadfastness of their faith even before men, or crown them in secret after death, and not even then take away the memory of the praise they deserved from men. Above all, however, my brothers, do not swear, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech be Yes, yes; No, no. Because He desires to completely drain the deadly poison of the tongue from His listeners, prohibiting backbiting, forbidding judging one's neighbor, and banning mutual groaning in adversities, which are manifest sins, He also adds this which to some may seem trivial, to abolish the custom of oath-taking as well. For it is clearly evident that this too is by no means to be overlooked by those who carefully consider that saying of the Lord, who says: Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment (Matthew 12), that you do not fall under judgment. Accordingly, He says, I restrain you from guilt of swearing, lest by frequently swearing truthfully you may sometimes also fall into perjury, but stay as far away from the sin of perjury as you would not even want to swear truthfully except out of urgent necessity. But even he falls under the judgment of guilt, who, although he never perjures, more often than necessary swears truthfully. Because undoubtedly he sins by the very idleness of excessive speech and offends the Judge, who forbids both an unnecessary word and every oath.
[James 5:13] -- Is anyone among you in trouble? etc. He who previously forbade brothers to groan to each other under trials now demonstrates what should be done in contrast. If, he says, any of you is oppressed by sadness, whether an injury received from other men may accidentally occur, or by an incidental fault, or by a domestic loss overwhelming, or by any other reason you are caused grief, in no way at that hour should you murmur amongst yourselves and convene to complain about God's judgments, but rather run to the church, pray to the Lord on bended knees, so that He may send the grace of His consolation, lest the sadness of the world, which works death, swallow you (II Cor. VII). Also, drive away the harmful plague of sadness from your heart by the sweetness of frequent Psalm-singing.
[James 5:14] -- Is anyone among you sick? etc. Just as he gave counsel to the sorrowful, so he gives counsel to the sick, on how to guard themselves from the foolishness of murmuring, and he sets the manner of healing according to the manner of the wound, instructing the sorrowful that they should pray and sing Psalms for themselves, but commanding the sick either in body or in faith to remember to cure themselves with the aid of several, and especially elders, and not to refer the cause of their weakness to the younger and less learned, lest they might receive some harmful word or advice from them.
[James 5:14] -- And let them pray over him, anointing him, etc. We read that the apostles did this in the Gospel, and now the custom of the Church holds that the sick are anointed with consecrated oil by the presbyters, and are healed with accompanying prayer. Not only the presbyters, but as Pope Innocent writes, also all Christians are permitted to use the same oil to anoint in their own or their relatives' necessity, though this oil may only be consecrated by bishops. For what he says, With oil in the name of the Lord, signifies oil consecrated in the name of the Lord. Or certainly because when they anoint the sick, they should also invoke the name of the Lord over him.
[James 5:15] -- And if he is in sins, they will be forgiven him. Many people, due to sins committed in the soul, are punished with sickness or even death of the body. Hence the apostle told the Corinthians, who were accustomed to receive the body of the Lord unworthily: Therefore many among you are weak and ill, and many sleep (1 Corinthians 11). If therefore the sick are in sins, and they have confessed these to the elders of the Church, and have endeavored with a perfect heart to abandon and correct them, they will be forgiven. For sins cannot be forgiven without the confession of amendment. Hence it is rightly added:
[James 5:16] -- Confess therefore your sins to one another, etc. In this matter, there should be this discretion, that we confess our daily and trivial sins to one another, to our equals, and believe that we are saved by their daily prayer. Moreover, we should disclose the uncleanness of graver leprosy according to the law of the priesthood, and take care to purify according to his judgment as he has ordered and for as long as he has ordered.
[James 5:16] -- For the prayer of a righteous person has great power, etc. He adds a fitting example of how much the continual prayer of the righteous avails, when Elijah with one prayer by praying for such a long time withheld the heavens, turned away rain from the lands, denied fruits to mortals, and again when he willed, when he perceived the time was appropriate, when he saw the heart of the proud king and the idolatrous nation bent to repentance by the long plague of famine, with only one prayer prayed, and restored to the lands the fruits and waters he had denied. For thus it follows:
[James 5:18] -- And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, etc. Therefore, he prayed once and before and after, and this one Elijah obtained such great and mighty things; how much more, then, is the frequent prayer of many righteous people worth? But lest our frailty should tremble, thinking that it cannot do similar things to such a great prophet, who deserved to be taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, the blessed James, intending to speak about his prayer, thus began: Elijah was a man like us, subject to suffering. For he was a man, although second to none in virtue, like us in the origin of the flesh, subject to suffering as we are, both in the frailty of the mind and the flesh. For he showed that he was frail in the flesh by seeking sustenance from the widow at Zarephath. And because he was also subject to the suffering of the mind, he showed it when, after waters were returned to the earth and the prophets and priests of idols were slain, he fled through the deserts, terrified by the threats of a single woman. But how great it is to pray for the sick before the Lord, and to call them back to health as confessing their sins, he shows by adding:
[James 5:19] -- My brothers, if anyone among you strays from the truth, etc. For, as in the earlier sections of this Epistle, our tongue is restrained from wicked or idle speech, it is now shown what we should especially speak at the end. Therefore, we are commanded to pray and sing psalms to the Lord whenever we are struck by adversities. Likewise, we must confess our sins to one another and pray for each other, so that we may be saved, showing as much care as we can for the health of our neighbors, not only their temporal but rather their eternal health. For just as it is of great reward to save a body destined to die, how much more meritorious is it to save a soul destined to live forever in the heavenly homeland? It should be noted that some codices have: "He will save his own soul from death." And from the ambiguous Greek, it can also be rightly interpreted this way. Indeed, whoever corrects a stray person thereby secures for themselves greater joys of celestial life. He says, "He will save his own soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." He who converts a sinner from error hides his sins from the view of the inner Judge by the superposition of a better life; and he also covers his own failings, in whatever ways he has erred, from the sight of Him who sees all things by caring for his neighbor, according to the Psalmist: "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered" (Psalm 31). And Blessed James, urging this, does not forget what he said earlier: "Do not become many teachers, my brothers" (James 3). For there, he removes the imperfect from the office of teaching, which they sought out of pride. Here, however, he instructs those who are well-prepared on what they ought to do for the salvation of their neighbors out of fraternal love. For what a teacher is said to do here, elsewhere charity is remembered to do, according to Blessed Peter the apostle: "Because charity covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4). Nor should it be overlooked that this conversion of the erring is often accomplished not only by speaking but also frequently by acting well. For if anyone shows good examples of action to their neighbors, even without speaking, and converts them to works of alms, hospitality, or other virtues they had neglected, they indeed perform the office of a teacher and will receive a certain reward from the merciful Judge for the salvation of the brother they corrected.
On the First Epistle of Peter