Homily 14 — Matthew 4, verses 12 to 25

“Now when Jesus had heard that John had been handed over, he departed into Galilee.” [a]

Why does he leave? Once again he is teaching us not to go out to meet trials, but to give way and withdraw. It is no disgrace not to throw oneself into danger; the disgrace is in failing to stand firm like a man once one has fallen into it. So to teach us this, and to calm the envy of the Jews, he withdraws to Capernaum. At one stroke he fulfills the prophecy and hurries to catch the teachers of the world, for they, as you know, were living there, working at their trade.

But notice, please, how in every case, when he is about to go away to the Gentiles, it is the Jews who give him the occasion. So it is here. By plotting against his forerunner and throwing him into prison, they drive Christ out into Galilee of the Gentiles. And to show that he is not speaking of the Jewish nation under the name of one part of it, nor hinting darkly at all the tribes, see how exactly the prophet marks out the place: “The land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: the people who sat in darkness saw a great light.” By darkness he does not mean the darkness our eyes see, but people’s errors and ungodliness. That is why he added, “Those who sat in the region and shadow of death, on them light has dawned.” So that you would learn that neither the light nor the darkness he speaks of is the kind the senses perceive, when he spoke of the light he did not call it simply light, but “a great light,” which elsewhere he expresses by the word “true”; and when he described the darkness, he called it “a shadow of death.”

Then, to show that they did not seek and find by themselves, but that God showed himself to them from above, he says to them, “Light has dawned” — that is, the light sprang up of itself and shone out; it was not that they ran to the light first. For in truth the human condition was at its very worst before Christ came. They did more than “walk in darkness”; they “sat in darkness” — a sign, you might say, that they did not even hope to be set free. Like people who do not even know where to put their next step, they sat there, overtaken by the darkness, no longer able even to stand.

“From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” [d]

“From that time.” What time? After John was thrown into prison. And why did he not preach to them from the beginning? Indeed, what need was there of John at all, when the witness of his works was proclaiming him?

It was so that from this too you would learn his dignity: that just as the Father has prophets, so he too has prophets. That is what Zechariah also meant when he said, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.” … This was the reason he himself gave, when he said, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is shown to be in the right by her children.”

Besides, it was necessary that what concerned him be spoken first by someone else and not by himself. For if, even after testimonies and proofs so many and so great, they said, “You testify about yourself; your testimony is not true,” what would they not have said if he had come into their midst without John saying anything, and had been the first to testify about himself? That is why he did not preach before John, nor work miracles until John was thrown into prison: so that the crowd would not be divided in this way. And that is also why John did no miracle at all, so that by this means too he might hand the crowd over to Jesus, as Jesus’ miracles drew them to him.

Again, if even after so many divine precautions John’s disciples, both before and after his imprisonment, were jealous of him, and the people suspected that John, not he, was the Christ, what would the result not have been if none of these things had happened? That is why Matthew notes distinctly that “from that time he began to preach.” And when he began his preaching, he too taught the same message the other used to preach, and as yet the message he preached said not a word about himself. For the moment it was a great thing for even this much to be accepted, since they did not yet have the right opinion about him. That is also why at the beginning he puts in nothing severe or harsh, as the other did, when he spoke of an axe and a tree cut down, a winnowing fork and a threshing floor and unquenchable fire. His opening notes are gracious: the heavens, and the kingdom there, are the good news he announces to his hearers.

“And walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they left their nets and followed him.” [g]

And yet John says that they were called in another way. From this it is plain that this was a second call, and one can see it from many things. There it is said that they came to him when “John had not yet been thrown into prison”; here, after he was in confinement. There Andrew calls Peter; here Jesus calls both. And John says that Jesus, seeing Simon coming, says, “You are Simon the son of Jonah; you will be called Cephas, which is translated, a stone.” But Matthew says that he was already called by that name, for his words are, “seeing Simon who was called Peter.” One can see it from the place they were called from, and from many other things, and from their ready obedience and their leaving everything. For by now they had been well instructed beforehand. In the other account Andrew is seen coming to his house and hearing many things; but here, having heard one bare word, they followed immediately.

For it was not unlikely that they had followed him at the beginning and then left him again and gone back to their own trade, when they saw John thrown into prison and Jesus himself going away. And so you see that he finds them actually fishing. But he neither stopped them at first, when they wanted to withdraw, nor, once they had withdrawn, did he let them go altogether. He gave way when they turned aside from him, and he comes again to win them back — and that is the great art of fishing.

But notice both their faith and their obedience. They were in the middle of their work — and you know how absorbing a thing fishing is — yet when they heard his command they did not delay, they did not put it off, they did not say, “Let us go home and talk things over with our relatives.” No, “they left everything and followed,” just as Elisha did with Elijah. For this is the kind of obedience Christ looks for from us: that we not delay even for a moment, even if something absolutely necessary is pressing hard on us. That is why, when someone else had come to him and was asking leave to bury his own father, he did not allow him even this: to show that we must value following him above everything.

But suppose you say: “The promise was very great.” That is exactly why I admire them most: when they had not yet seen any sign, they believed a promise so vast, and counted everything else second to being with him. And this was because they believed that the very words by which they had been caught would enable them to catch others too.

To these, then, he made this promise, but to James and John he said nothing of the kind. For the obedience of those who had gone before had by now paved the way for these. Besides, they too had heard many things about him before.

And see how carefully he points out their poverty to us as well: he found them mending their nets. So great was their poverty that they were patching what was worn out, because they could not afford to buy others. And for that time this too was no small proof of virtue: that they bore their poverty easily, supported themselves by honest work, were bound to one another by the power of love, and had their father with them and were looking after him.

So when he had caught them, he then begins to work miracles in their presence, confirming by his deeds what John had said about him. He was constantly going into their synagogues, and by this too he was teaching them that he was not some adversary of God and deceiver, but that he had come in agreement with the Father. [k]

And when he went there, he did not only preach; he also displayed miracles. This is because whenever something strange and surprising is done, and a way of life is being brought in, God usually works miracles as pledges of his power, and he grants them to those who are to receive his laws. So, for example, when he was about to make man, he created a whole world, and only then gave him the law he had in Paradise. When he was to give laws to Noah, he again displayed great wonders: he reduced the whole creation to its elements once more, let that fearful sea prevail for a full year, and in so great a storm preserved that righteous man. In Abraham’s time too he granted many signs: his victory in the war, the plague on Pharaoh, his rescue from dangers. And when he was about to give the Jews their laws, he displayed those marvelous and great wonders, and then gave the law. In just the same way here, since he was going to bring in a certain lofty way of life and tell them what they had never heard, he confirms what he says by displaying miracles.

Since the kingdom he was preaching did not appear to the eye, he makes it plain, invisible as it is, by things that do appear.

And notice how careful the evangelist is to avoid wasting words: he does not tell us about every one of those who were healed, but in a few words hurries past whole showers of miracles. “They brought to him,” he says, “all who were sick with various diseases and torments, and those possessed by demons, and those who were epileptic, and those who were paralyzed, and he healed them.”

But our question is this: why did he not demand faith of any of them? He did not say what we find him saying later, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” — because he had not yet given proof of his power. Besides, the very act of coming to him and bringing others to him showed no ordinary faith. They brought them even from far away, and they would never have brought them unless they had become convinced of great things about him.

Now then, let us follow him too, for we also have many diseases of the soul, and these above all he wants to heal. That is the very reason he corrects the other kind: so that he may drive these out of our soul.

So let us come to him, and let us ask for nothing that belongs to this life, but rather for forgiveness of sins. He gives it even now, if we are in earnest. As then “his fame went out into Syria,” so now it has gone out into the whole world. They ran together when they heard that he healed people possessed by demons. And you, who have had far more and greater experience of his power, will you not rouse yourself and run? [o]

They left country and friends and relatives; will you not bear even to leave your house in order to come near and receive far greater things? Or rather, we do not ask even this much of you. Leave only your evil habits, and you can easily be made whole while staying at home with your friends.

But as things are, if we have any illness of the body, we do and devise everything to be rid of what pains us; but when our soul is sick, we delay and hang back. That is why we are not set free from the other kind either. The things that are essential have become secondary to us, and the secondary things essential; we leave the fountain of our ills alone and want to clean out the streams.

That our bodily ills are caused by the wickedness of the soul is shown by the man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years, and by the one who was let down through the roof, and before these by Cain too; and one can see it from many other things as well. So let us do away with the wellspring of our evils, and all the channels of our diseases will stop flowing. For paralysis is not the only disease; our sin is one too, and a worse one, as much worse as a soul is better than a body.

So let us draw near to him now as well. Let us beg him to brace up our paralyzed soul, and let us leave everything that belongs to this life and take account of spiritual things only. Or if you do cling to these others too, at least think of them after the spiritual ones.

And you must not think lightly of sin because you feel no pain when you sin. On the contrary, lament most of all for this very reason: that you do not feel the anguish of your offenses. This happens not because sin does not bite, but because the soul that offends has lost its feeling. With this in mind, look at those who do feel their own sins: how they wail more bitterly than people who are being cut or burned; how much they do, how much they suffer, how deeply they mourn and lament to be set free from their evil conscience. They would do nothing of the kind unless they were in great pain of soul.

The best thing, then, is not to sin in the first place. The next best is to feel that we sin and to correct ourselves thoroughly. But if we do not have even this, how will we pray to God and ask forgiveness for our sins, when we take no account of these things? When you yourself, who have offended, are unwilling to know even this very fact, that you have sinned, for what offenses will you beg God’s pardon? For things you do not know? And how will you know the greatness of the kindness done you? So tell your offenses one by one, so that you may learn what you are being forgiven for, and so become grateful to your Benefactor.

But when it is a man you have provoked, you beg his friends, his neighbors and his doorkeepers; you spend money; you use up many days visiting and petitioning; and even if the man you provoked rejects you outright once, twice, ten thousand times, you do not lose heart, but grow more earnest and plead all the more. Yet when the God of all is provoked, we yawn and lounge back, and live in luxury and drunkenness, and do everything as usual. When will we ever be able to appease him? And how will this very behavior not provoke him all the more? For it is not so much sinning as sinning without even feeling pain that stirs his indignation and anger.

That is why, after all this, we ought to sink into the very earth, and not so much as look at this sun, nor breathe at all, because, though we have a Master so easy to appease, we first provoke him and then feel no remorse at having provoked him. And yet even when he is angry, he certainly does not act as one who hates us and turns away from us, but so that in this way at least he may win us over to himself. For if he went on treating you as a friend after you insulted him, you would despise him all the more. So, to keep this from happening, he turns away for a little while, in order to have you with him always.

Let us now, I beg you, take courage from his love for humankind, and let us show an anxious repentance before that day arrives which will not let us profit from it. For as yet everything depends on us, but then the Judge alone has control of the sentence. “Let us therefore come before his face with confession”; let us weep, let us mourn. For if we are able to persuade the Judge to forgive us our sins before the appointed day, we will not even need to enter the court. But if this is not done, he will hear us publicly, in the presence of the world, and we will no longer have any hope of pardon. [p]

For none of those who have not done away with their sins here will be able to escape giving account for them once he has gone there. Just as those who are taken out of the prisons here on earth are brought in their chains to the place of judgment, so all souls, when they have gone away from here bound with the many chains of their sins, are led to that awesome judgment seat. For in truth our present life is nothing better than a prison.

When we go into that building, we see everyone bound with chains. In the same way now, if we draw back from outward show and go into each person’s life, into each person’s soul, we will see it bound with chains heavier than iron — and above all if you go into the souls of the rich. For the more people have around them, the more they are bound. When you see a prisoner with irons on his back, on his hands, and often on his feet too, you count him miserable most of all for that very reason. So also with the rich man: when you see him surrounded by countless affairs, do not count him rich for that reason, but wretched, for these very things.

For along with these bonds he has a cruel jailer too, the wicked love of riches. It does not let him get out of this prison, but provides him with thousands of fetters and guards and doors and bolts; and when it has thrown him into the inner prison, it persuades him even to take pleasure in these bonds, so that he may not find even a hope of release from the evils that press on him.

And if in thought you were to lay that man’s soul open, you would see it not only bound, but squalid and filthy and swarming with vermin. For the pleasures of luxury are no better than vermin; they are even more loathsome, and they destroy the body more, and the soul along with it, and on the one and the other they bring ten thousand scourges of sickness.

Because of all this, then, let us beg the Redeemer of our souls to burst our bonds apart and remove this cruel jailer of ours, and, setting us free from the weight of those iron chains, to make our spirits lighter than any wing. And as we beg him, let us also contribute our own part: earnestness, careful thought, and a noble zeal. In this way we will be able in a short time both to be freed from the evils that now oppress us, and to learn what condition we were in before, and to lay hold of the freedom that belongs to us. May we all attain it, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.