John Chrysostom, Against the Jews. Homily 8
HOMILY VIII
I
(1) Gone is the fasting of the Jews, or rather, the drunkenness of the Jews. Yes, it is possible to be drunk without wine; it is possible for a sober man to act as if he is drunk and to revel like a prodigal. If a man could not get drunk without wine, the prophet would never have said: 'Woe to those who are drunk not from wine;' if a man could not get drunk without wine, Paul would never have said: 'Do not be drunk with wine.' For he said this as if there were a possibility of getting drunk some other way. And it is possible. A man can be drunk with anger, with unseemly desire, with greed, with vainglory, with ten thousand other passions. For drunkenness is nothing other than a loss of right reason, a derangement, and depriving the soul of its health.
(2) Therefore, I would not be making too strong a statement if I should say that we find a drunkard not only in the man who is a heavy drinker of strong wine but we also find one in the man who nurtures some other passion in his soul. For the man in love with a woman who is not his wife, the man who spends his time with prostitutes, is a drunkard. The heavy drinker cannot walk straight, his speech is rude, his eyes cannot see things as they really are. In the same way, the drunkard who is filled with the strong wine of his undisciplined passion is also unsound of speech; everything he utters is disgraceful, corrupt, crude, and ridiculous; he, too, cannot see things as they really are because he is blind to what he sees. Like a deranged man or one who is out of his wits, he imagines he sees everywhere the woman he yearns to ravish. No matter how many people speak to him at gatherings or banquets, at any time or place, he seem not to hear them; he strains after her and dreams of his sin; he is suspicious of everything and afraid of everything; he is no better off than some trap-shay animal.
(3) Again, the man in the grip of anger is drunk. In the same way as other drunkards, his face became swollen, his voice grows rough, his eyes are bloodshot, his mind is darkened, his reason is submerged, his tongue trembles, his eyes are out of focus, and he does not hear what is really said. His anger affects his brain worse that strong wine; it stirs up a storm and causes a distress that cannot be calmed.
(4) But if the man in the grip of passion or anger is drunk, this is all more true of the impious man who blasphemes God, who goes against his laws and never is willing to renounce his untimely obstinacy. This man is drunk, mad, and much worse of than insane revelers, even if he does not seem aware of his condition. And this is the characteristic which most marks a drunkard: he has no awareness of his unseemly behavior. This, in fact, is the special danger of madness: those who suffer from it do not know they are sick. So, too, the Jews are drunk but do not know they are drunk.
(5) Indeed, The fasting of the Jews, which is more disgraceful than any drunkenness, is over and gone. But let us not stop thinking ahead for our brothers, let us not consider that our concern for them is now no longer timely. See what soldiers do. Suppose they have met the enemy and routed them. As they return from pursuing the foe, they do not immediately rush back to camp. First they go back to the battlefield to pick up their fallen comrades. They bury the dead but, if they see among the corpses men who are not mortally wounded but are still breathing, they give them as much first aid as they can, they pick them up, and carry them back to their camp. Then they extract the dart, call the physicians, wash away the blood, apply remedies to the wounds, and by giving them every care, they bring the wounded back to health.
(6) Therefore, we must do the same. By God's grace, we made the prophets our warriors against the Jews and routed them. As we return from pursuing out foes, let us look all around to see if any of our brothers have fallen, if the fast has swept some of them off, if any of them have shared in the festival of the Jews. Let us bury no one; let us, however, pick up every fallen man and give him the treatment he needs. In battles between armies of this world, a soldier cannot bring back life or recover for further service a comrade who has fallen once and for all and died. But in a battle of this war of ours, even if a man has been mortally wounded, if we have good will and the help of God's grace, we can take him by the hand and lead him back to life. Unlike a casualty in war, here is not a man's body that dies, but his will and his resolution. And it is possible to restore to life a will that has died; it is possible to persuade a dead soul to come back to its own proper life and to acknowledge again its Master.
II
(1) We must not grow weary, my brothers, we must not became exhausted, we must not lose heart. Let no one say: 'We should have done all we could to put them on their guard before the fast. Now that they have fasted, now that they have sinned, now that their transgression is complete, what use is there in helping them now?'
(2) If anyone knows what it means to look out for his brothers, he also knows that he must look for them and show this concern now more than ever. We must not only put them on their guard before they sin but we must also extend a helping hand after they have fallen. Suppose God had done that from the beginning; suppose he had put us on guard only before we sinned; suppose, after we had sinned, he had given us up and let us lie where we had fallen from one end of our life to the other. Then no one of us would ever have been saved.
(3) But God does not act that way. He loves men, he is kind to them, he desires their salvation above all things. And so he looks out for them even after they have sinned. He said to Adam: 'From every tree in the garden you will eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil do not eat; for on the day you eat of it; you will surely die.' God put Adam on his guard by giving him every warning he would need: he showed him the ease of fulfilling the Law, the liberality of what it permitted, the harshness of the future punishment, and the speed with which it would come. For God did not say: 'After one, two, or three days, but, 'on the very day you eat of it, you will surely die.'
(4) God looked out for Adam very carefully; he instructed him, exhorted him, and gave him many blessings. But even so, Adam disregarded his commands and fell into sin. Still God did not say: 'What good will it do now? What is the use of helping now? He ate the fruit, he fell into sin, he transgressed the law, he believed the devil, he dishonored my commandment, he was wounded, he became subject to death and died, he came under the judgment. What need have I to speak to him now?
(5) But God said none of these things. Rather, he came immediately to Adam, spoke to him, and consoled him. Again God gave Adam another remedy-the remedy of toil and sweat. God kept right on doing everything and exerting himself until he raised up fallen nature, rescued it from dead, led it by the hand to heaven, and gave it greater blessings than it had lost. By the things God himself did, he taught the devil that he would reap no profit from his plot. Satan had succeeded in driving men from Paradise but he would soon see them in heaven mingling with the angels.
(6) In the case of Cain, God did the same thing. Before Cain's great sin, God spoke plainly to him, warned him, and said: 'You sinned; stop it. His (Abel's) refuge is in you and you will rule over him.' See God's wisdom and understanding. He said: 'Because I have honored Abel, you are afraid he will take from you the privilege of the first-born; you are afraid he will take the first place, which is due to you.' For the first-born necessarily had a more honored position than the second-born. So God said: 'Take courage, do not be afraid, feel no anguish over this. His refuge is in you, and you will rule over him.' This is what God meant: 'Stay in the honored position of the first-born; be a refuge, a shelter, and a protection for your brother. But do not jump to bloodshed; do not come to that impious act of murder.' Even so, Cain did not listen, he did not stop, he did commit that murder, he did bathe his hands in blood from his brother's throat.
(7) But then what happened? God did not say: 'Let him go now. What further use is there in helping him? He did commit the murder, he did slay his brother. He scorned my advice; he dared to do that mad and unforgivable deed of slaughter. Even though I was looking out for him, instructing him, even though he enjoyed such benefice from me, he drove all these from his mind and paid them no heed. Let him go, then, and be hereafter cast from my sight. He has deserved no consideration from me.'
(8) God neither said nor did anything like that. Instead, he came again to him, corrected him, and said: 'Where is your brother Abel? When Cain said he did not know, God still did not desert him but he brought him, in spite of himself, to admit what he had done. After Cain said: 'I do not know, 'God said: 'The voice of your brother's blood cries to me.' What God was telling Cain was that the very deed proclaimed who the murderer was. And what did Cain say? 'My guilt is too great to be forgiven. If you drive me from the land, I shall also be hidden from your face.'
(9) What Cain meant was this. 'I have committed a sin too great for pardon, defense, or forgiveness; if it is your will to punish my crime, I shall lie exposed to every harm because your helping hand has abandoned me.' And what did God do then? He said: 'Not so! Whoever kills Cain shall be punished sevenfold.' What God said was this: 'Do not fear that. You will live a long life. If any man does kill you, he will be subject to many punishment.' For the number seven in the Scriptures means an indefinitely large number. So, then, Cain was stricken with many punishments-with torment and trembling, with grief and discouragement, with paralysis of his body. After he had undergone these penalties, as God put it: 'Whoever kills you and frees you from these punishments will draw the same vengeance upon himself.'
(10) The punishment of which God spoke seems to be excessively harsh but it does give us a glimpse of his great solicitude. God wanted men of later times to exercise self-control; therefore, he designed the kind of punishment which was capable of setting Cain free from his sin. If God had immediately destroyed him, Cain would have disappeared, his sin would have stayed concealed, and he would have remained unknown to men of after days. But as it is, God let him live a long time with that bodily tremor of his. The sight of Cain's palsied limbs was a lesson for all he met; it served to teach all men and exhort them never to dare do what he had done, so that they might not suffer the same punishment. And Cain himself became a better man again. His trembling, his fear, the mental torment which never left him, his physical paralysis kept him, as it were, shackled. They kept him from leaping again to any other like deed of boldness; they constantly reminded him of his former crime; through them he achieved greater self-control in his soul.
III
(1) As I was speaking, it occurred to me to bring up a further question. Cain confessed his sin and condemned what he had done; he said his crime was too great to be forgiven and that he deserved no defense. Why, then, could he not wash away his sins? The prophet Isaiah said: 'Be the first to tell your iniquities, that you may be justified.' Why, then, was Cain condemned? Because he did not tell his sins as the prophet commanded. Isaiah did not simply say: 'Tell your iniquities.' What did he say? He said: 'Be the first to tell your iniquities.'
(2) The question here is this. It is not simply a matter of telling, but of being the first to tell and not waiting for an accuser to convict you. But Cain did not tell first; he waited for God to accuse him. And then, when God did accuse him, he denied it. After God had once and for all given clear proof of what he had done, Cain then told his sin. But this is no longer a confession.
(3) Therefore, beloved, when you commit sin, do not wait for another man to accuse you but, before you are accused and indicted, do you yourself condemn what you have done. Then, if someone accuses you later on, it is no longer a matter of your doing the right thing in confessing, but of your correcting the accusation which he makes. And so it is that someone else has said: 'The just man begins his speech by accusing himself.' So it is not a question of accusing but of being the first to accuse yourself and not waiting for others to accuse you.
(4) Peter certainly sinned gravely in denying Christ. But he was quick to remind himself of his sin and, before anyone accused him, he told of his error and wept bitterly. He so effectively washed away his sin of denial that he became the chief of the apostles and the whole world was entrusted to him.