Homily 17 — Matthew 5, verses 27 to 37

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” [a]

Having now finished the first commandment, and having carried it to the very height of self-denial, he moves on in due course and order to the second, in this too following the law.

“And yet,” someone may say, “this is not the second commandment but the third. The first is not ‘You shall not murder,’ but ‘The Lord your God is one Lord.’” So it is worth asking, too, why he did not begin with that one. Why, then? Because if he had begun there, he would have had to enlarge that commandment as well, and bring himself in alongside his Father. But it was not yet the time to teach anything of that kind about himself.

Besides, for the time being he was practicing his moral teaching only. He meant to convince his hearers first from this, and from his miracles, that he was the Son of God. Now suppose that before he had said or done anything, he had said at once, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘I am the Lord your God, and there is no other besides me’; but I say to you, worship me just as you worship him.” That would have made everyone take him for a madman. For if even after his teaching and all his great miracles, when he still was not saying this openly, they said he was possessed by a demon, what would they not have said, what would they not have thought, if he had tried to say anything of the kind before all this?

But by holding back his teaching on these subjects until the proper season, he was making the doctrine acceptable to the many. That is why he passed over it quickly for now. Later, when he had established it everywhere by his miracles and by his most excellent teaching, he unveiled it in words as well.

For the present, though, he unfolds it as occasion allows, gradually and quietly, by showing his miracles and by the very manner of his teaching. For when he laid down such laws, and such corrections of laws, with authority, he would lead the attentive and understanding hearer on, little by little, to the teaching about himself. For Scripture says, “They were astonished at him, because he did not teach as their scribes did.”

He begins, then, with the passions that belong most to our whole race — anger, I mean, and desire, for these above all hold absolute sway within us and are more natural than the rest. And with great authority, as became a lawgiver, he corrected them and brought them to order with all strictness. He did not say merely that the adulterer is punished. What he had done with the murderer, he does here too: he punishes even the unchaste look, to teach you how far he went beyond the scribes. So he says, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her.” That is, the man who makes it his business to be curious about beautiful bodies, to hunt out elegant features, to feast his soul on the sight, and to fasten his eyes on lovely faces. [d]

For he came to set free from all evil deeds not the body only, but the soul too, and the soul before the body. Since it is in the heart that we receive the grace of the Spirit, he cleanses the heart first.

“And how,” someone may say, “is it possible to be free of desire?” My first answer is this: if we were willing, even desire could be deadened and stay inactive.

Next, he is not taking away desire altogether here, but the desire that springs up in people from looking. The man who is curious to gaze at lovely faces is himself the chief one lighting the furnace of that passion. He makes his own soul a captive, and soon goes on to the act as well.

This is why he did not say, “Whoever lusts to commit adultery,” but, “Whoever looks to lust.” In the case of anger he laid down a certain distinction, saying “without a cause” and “for nothing”; but not here. Here he took the desire away once for all. And yet both are planted in us by nature, and both are set in us for our good, anger and desire alike: the one so that we may punish evil and correct those who live in disorder; the other so that we may have children, and our race may be renewed by one generation following another.

Why, then, did he not make a distinction here as well? He did — a very great one, and if you pay attention you will see it included here too. He did not say simply, “Whoever desires,” since a person can feel desire even while sitting in the mountains. He said, “Whoever looks to lust” — that is, the man who gathers lust to himself; the man who, with nothing forcing him, brings the wild beast in upon his thoughts when they are calm. That no longer comes from nature but from self-indulgence. The ancient Scripture, too, corrects this from the first, saying, “Do not gaze at beauty that belongs to another.”

Then, so that no one would say, “What if I gaze and am not taken captive?” he punishes the look, so that you will not trust in this security and some day fall into sin. “What then,” someone may say, “if I look, and do feel desire, but do nothing wrong?” Even so, you are ranked among the adulterers. The Lawgiver has pronounced it, and you must ask no more questions. After looking once, twice, or three times, you may perhaps be able to hold back. But if you keep doing it and keep kindling the furnace, you will certainly be caught, for you do not stand outside the nature all people share.

When we see a child holding a knife, even if we do not see him hurt himself, we beat him and forbid him ever to hold one again. In the same way God takes away the unchaste look even before the act, so that you never fall into the act as well. For the man who has once kindled the flame goes on forming shameful images by himself, even when the woman he looked at is not there, and from them he often goes on to the deed itself. That is why Christ takes away even the embrace that happens only in the heart.

What can they say now, those who keep virgins living in their houses? By the terms of this law they must be guilty of countless adulteries, since they look at these women with desire every day. That is why blessed Job, too, laid down this law for himself from the beginning, shutting off this kind of gazing from himself on every side.

For in truth the struggle is greater when we look at the one we are fond of and do not have her. The pleasure we reap from the sight is not so great as the harm we suffer from making the desire grow. We make our opponent strong and give the devil more room, and once we have brought him into our inmost parts and thrown our mind open to him, we can no longer drive him back. That is why he says: “Do not commit adultery with your eyes, and you will not commit it with your mind.” There is, of course, another way of looking: the way the chaste look. So he did not forbid our seeing altogether, but only the seeing that comes with desire. If he had not meant this, he would have said simply, “Whoever looks at a woman.” But he did not say that. He said, “Whoever looks to lust,” that is, whoever looks to please his sight. God did not make your eyes at all so that you might bring adultery in through them, but so that, looking at his creatures, you might admire the one who made them.

So just as a person can be angry without a cause, a person can look without a cause — that is, when you do it for lust. If you want to look and take pleasure, look at your own wife, and love her always; no law forbids that. But if you are going to be curious about the beauty that belongs to another, you wrong both your wife, by letting your eyes wander elsewhere, and the woman you looked at, by touching her unlawfully. You have not touched her with your hand, but you have caressed her with your eyes. That is why this too is counted adultery; and before that great penalty to come, it brings no slight penalty of its own. For then everything inside the man is filled with disquiet and turmoil. The storm is great and the pain most grievous, and no captive or prisoner in chains could be worse off than a man in this state of mind. Often the woman who shot the arrow has flown away, and still the wound remains. Or rather, it was not she who shot the arrow; you gave yourself the deadly wound by your unchaste look.

I say this to clear modest women of the charge. But certainly if a woman dresses herself up and invites the eyes of those who come her way, then even if she does not wound the man who meets her, she incurs the utmost penalty. She mixed the poison and prepared the hemlock, even if she did not hand over the cup. Or rather, she did hand over the cup, even if no one was found to drink it.

“Why, then, does he not speak to women too?” Because the laws he lays down are in every case for everyone, even though he seems to address himself to men only. When he speaks to the head, he makes his warning apply to the whole body as well. He knows man and woman as one living creature, and nowhere divides them into separate kinds. [f]

But if you want to hear his rebuke aimed at women in particular, listen to Isaiah, who inveighs against them at length and mocks their dress, their looks, their walk, their trailing garments, their mincing feet, their bending necks. Listen with him to blessed Paul too, who lays down many laws for them — about clothes, gold ornaments, braided hair, luxurious living, and everything else of that kind — and sharply rebukes the female sex. And Christ too hinted at this very thing, obscurely, by what follows next; for when he says, “Pluck out and cut off the eye that causes you to stumble,” he speaks as one showing his anger against them.

That is why he goes on to say, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you.” He gave these commands so that you would not say, “But what if she is related to me? What if she belongs to me in some other way?” He is not talking about our limbs — far from it. Nowhere does he say that our flesh is to blame for things; everywhere it is the evil mind that is accused. For it is not the eye that sees, but the mind and the thought. Often, for instance, when we are wholly turned elsewhere, our eye does not see the people right in front of us. So the matter does not depend entirely on the eye’s working.

Again, if he had been speaking of the members of the body, he would not have said it of one eye, and of the right eye only, but of both. For a man who is made to stumble by his right eye will obviously suffer the same harm through his left as well. Why, then, did he mention the right eye, and add the hand? To show you that he is not speaking of limbs, but of those who are close to us. So he says: “If you love someone so much that he is like a right eye to you; if you think him so useful to you that you count him as your very hand, and he harms your soul, cut off even these.” And see the force of it. He does not say, “Withdraw from him,” but, to show how complete the separation must be, “Pluck it out and throw it away from you.”

Then, since his command was sharp, he also shows the gain on both sides, from the benefits and from the evils, keeping to the same figure. “For it is better for you,” he says, “that one of your members should perish than that your whole body should be thrown into hell.”

For while that person neither saves himself nor stops destroying you as well, what kindness is it for both to sink, when, if they were separated, at least one might have been saved?

“But then why did Paul choose to become accursed?” Not on terms of gaining nothing, but for the salvation of others. In this case, though, the harm falls on both. That is why he did not say only, “Pluck it out,” but also, “Throw it away from you,” so that you do not take him back again, if he stays as he is. In this way you will both free him from a heavier charge and free yourself from ruin.

But so that you may see the benefit of this law still more clearly, let us, if you like, test what has been said on the body itself, by way of supposition. Suppose you were given the choice: either keep your eye and be thrown into a pit and perish, or pluck it out and save the rest of your body. Would you not of course accept the second? That is plain to everyone. This would not be acting as one who hates the eye, but as one who loves the rest of the body. Make the same reckoning about men and women too. If the one who harms you by his friendship stays incurable, cutting him off in this way will free you from all harm, and he too will be spared the heavier charges, since he will not have to answer for your destruction on top of his own evil deeds. Do you see how full the law is of gentleness and tender care, and how much love for humankind it reveals in what most people take for severity?

Let those who hurry off to the theaters listen to this, those who make themselves adulterers every day. If the law commands us to cut off even the person whose connection with us leads to our harm, what defense can they have, who by haunting those places draw to themselves every day even women they did not yet know, and bring on themselves countless occasions of ruin?

From here on he not only forbids us to look unchastely. Having shown the harm that comes of it, he tightens the law further as he goes on, commanding us to cut off, to sever, and to throw far away. And the one who lays all this down is the one who has spoken countless words about love, so that in both ways you might learn his providence, and how he seeks your good from every direction.

“Now it has been said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever sends his wife away, except on the ground of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who has been sent away commits adultery.” [h]

He does not move on to what lies ahead until he has thoroughly cleared up the earlier subjects. Look, he shows us yet another kind of adultery. What is it? There was an ancient law that a man who hated his wife, for whatever cause, was not forbidden to throw her out and bring another home in her place. But the law did not tell him simply to do this. He had to give the woman a certificate of divorce, so that it would not be in her power to return to him again. That way at least the outline of marriage would remain.

For if he had not required this, but it had been lawful to throw her out and take another, and afterward take the first back again, the confusion would certainly have been great, with all men constantly taking one another’s wives, and the whole business would then have been outright adultery. With this in view he devised the certificate of divorce as no small mitigation.

But these things were done because of another, far greater wickedness. I mean that if he had made it compulsory to keep even a hated wife in the house, the husband, in his hatred, would have killed her. For that is what the Jewish people were like. Those who did not spare their children, who killed the prophets and “shed blood like water,” would have shown far less mercy to women. That is why he allowed the lesser evil, to remove the greater. For hear him say that this was not a law of the first rank: “Moses wrote these things because of the hardness of your hearts” — so that you would not kill them in the house, but rather send them out.

But since he had taken away all wrath, forbidding not murder only but even the mere feeling of anger, he brings in this law too with ease. With this in view he keeps calling the former words to mind, to show that his sayings are not contrary to them but in agreement: that he is strengthening them, not overthrowing them; completing them, not doing away with them.

And notice how everywhere he addresses his words to the man. “Whoever sends his wife away,” he says, “causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a woman who has been sent away commits adultery.” That is, the first man, even if he does not take another wife, has by that act alone made himself liable to blame, because he has made the first wife an adulteress; the second has become an adulterer by taking a woman who belongs to another. Do not tell me, “The other man threw her out.” No, even when she has been thrown out she remains the wife of the man who drove her away.

Then, so that he would not make the wife more headstrong by laying all the blame on the man who threw her out, he has shut against her too the door of the man who would take her in afterward, by saying, “Whoever marries a woman who has been sent away commits adultery.” In this way he makes the woman chaste even against her will. He blocks her way to everyone entirely, and does not let her give cause for jealousy. For a woman who knew that she absolutely had to keep the husband first given to her, or else, thrown out of that house, have no other refuge at all, was compelled even against her will to make the best of her husband.

And do not be surprised if he says nothing at all to her about these things; for the woman is the weaker creature. That is why he lets her be, and by his threats against the men he fully corrects her carelessness. It is as if someone with a spendthrift son left the son alone and rebuked those who make him that way, forbidding them to keep company with him or come near him.

And if that seems hard to bear, remember, I beg you, his earlier sayings, and on what terms he called his hearers blessed, and you will see that it is entirely possible and easy. For how will a man who is gentle, a peacemaker, poor in spirit and merciful, send away his wife? How will one who is used to reconciling others be at odds with his own wife?

And not in this way only, but in another way too, he has lightened the law. He leaves even the husband one ground for sending her away, when he says, “except on the ground of sexual immorality.” Otherwise the matter would have come round to the same end again. For if he had commanded him to keep her in the house even while she was defiling herself with many men, he would have made the matter end in adultery once more.

Do you see how these sayings agree with what came before? The man who does not look at another woman with unchaste eyes will not commit sexual immorality; and if he does not commit sexual immorality, he will give no husband cause to send his wife away.

That is why, you see, after this he presses the point without reserve and builds up this fear like a wall of defense, warning the husband of the great danger if he does send her away, since he makes himself answerable for her adultery. And so that you would not hear, “Pluck out the eye,” and suppose this was said even of a wife, he added this correction at just the right time, giving leave to send her away on one ground only, and on no other.

“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all.” [k]

Why did he go straight on, not to theft, but to false witness, passing that commandment by? Because the man who steals will also swear when the occasion comes; but the man who knows nothing of either swearing or lying will be far less willing to steal. So by this he has overthrown the other sin as well, since lying comes out of stealing.

But what does “You shall perform your oaths to the Lord” mean? It means this: “You shall be truthful when you swear.” “But I say to you, do not swear at all.”

Next, to lead them still further away from swearing by God, he says, “Neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.” He is still speaking out of the writings of the prophets, and showing that he is not opposed to the men of old. He did this because they had a habit of swearing by these things, and he points to this habit near the end of his Gospel.

But notice, please, on what ground he makes these parts of creation great: not because of their own nature, but because of how God stands toward them, as he had declared it when he stooped down to meet his hearers. For the tyranny of idolatry was great, and so that these things would not be thought worthy of honor for their own sake, he has given the reason we have mentioned, which again would pass on to the glory of God. He did not say, “because heaven is beautiful and great,” or “because the earth is useful,” but “because the one is God’s throne and the other his footstool.” On every side he is urging them on toward their Lord.

“Nor by your head,” he says, “because you cannot make one hair white or black.”

Here again, it is not out of admiration for man that he has drawn him away from swearing by his head — for then man himself would be worshiped. It is because he refers the glory to God, and shows that you are not master even of yourself, and so certainly not of the oaths you make by your head. If no one would hand over his own child to someone else, much less will God hand over his own handiwork to you. It may be your head, but it is another’s property; and so far from being its master, you will not be able to do even the smallest thing with it. For he did not say, “You cannot make one hair grow,” but, “You cannot so much as change what it is like.”

“But what if someone demands an oath, and forces me to take it?” Let the fear of God be stronger than the force. If you are going to bring forward excuses like that, you will keep none of the things commanded.

Yes, for first you will say about your wife, “What if she is quarrelsome and wasteful?” And about the right eye, “What if I love it and am all on fire?” And about the unchaste look, “What if I cannot help seeing?” And about our anger against a brother, “What if I am quick-tempered and cannot control my tongue?” In short, you may trample underfoot every one of his sayings in this way. Yet when it comes to human laws, you surely do not dare use this plea in any case, or say, “What if this or that is the case?” Willing or unwilling, you accept what is written.

And besides, you will never have to submit to force at all. The man who has listened to those earlier blessings, and has shaped himself into the kind of person Christ commanded, will have no such force to endure from anyone, since everyone will hold him in reverence and respect.

“But let your yes be yes, and your no, no; for whatever goes beyond these comes from the evil one.”

What is it, then, that goes beyond “yes” and “no”? It is the oath, not perjury. Perjury is fully acknowledged already; no one needs to learn that it comes from the evil one. And it is not an excess but an opposite, whereas an excess means something more, something added over and above — and that is what swearing is.

“What then? Was it from the evil one? And if it was from the evil one, how was it a law?” Well, you will say the same thing about the wife too: how is something now counted as adultery that was allowed before? What, then, can one reply to this? That the commands given then were suited to the weakness of those who were receiving the laws. After all, to be worshiped with the smoke of sacrifices is very unworthy of God, just as lisping is unworthy of a philosopher. So that kind of thing was now declared to be adultery, and swearing to come from the evil one, now that the principles of virtue had advanced.

But if these things had been laws of the devil from the first, they would not have produced so much good. Yes, if those had not gone ahead first to prepare the way, these we now have would not have been so easily received. So do not demand their excellence now, when their use is past, but look for it then, when the times called for them. Or rather, if you like, even now; for their virtue shows even now, and most of all in the very thing we find fault with them for. That they look this way now is the greatest praise of them. If they had not brought us up well and made us fit to receive the greater commands, they would not look this way.

Think of the breast. When it has done its whole part and is sending the child on to more grown-up food, from then on it seems useless. The parents, who before thought it necessary for the baby, now run it down with endless mockery. And many, not content with words of abuse, even smear it with bitter drugs, so that where their words cannot remove the child’s untimely craving for it, the real thing may put out its longing. In the same way Christ says that these things come from the evil one — not to show that the old law is from the devil, but so that with the greatest urgency he might lead them away from their old poverty.

And to them he says these things. But as for the Jews, who had no feeling left and kept on in the same ways, he smeared their city all around with the terror of captivity, as with a bitter drug, and made it unapproachable. And since not even this could hold them back, but they longed to see it again and ran to it like a child to the breast, he hid it from them altogether, both tearing it down and leading most of them far away from it. It is as with our cattle: many people, by shutting the calves out, in time get them to give up their old, familiar habit of the milk.

But if the old law had belonged to the devil, it would not have led people away from idolatry. It would rather have drawn them on and thrown them into it, for that is what the devil wanted. But in fact we see the old law producing the opposite effect. Indeed this very thing, the oath, was ordained in the old days for this reason: so that they would not swear by the idols. For he says, “You shall swear by the true God.” So the advantages the law brought about were not small; they were very great. That they came to “solid food” was the work of its care.

“What then? Is swearing not from the evil one?” Yes, it certainly is altogether from the evil one — now, that is, after so high a rule of self-control has been given; but then it was not.

“But how can the same thing become good at one time and not good at another?” No, I say the very opposite: how could it help becoming good and not good, when everything cries out that it is so — the crafts, the fruits of the earth, and everything else? See it happening, for example, first in our own kind. To be carried in the earliest years of life is good, but later it is harmful. To eat food softened in someone’s mouth is good in the first stage of our life, but afterward it is utterly disgusting. To be fed on milk and to run to the breast is at first beneficial and healthy, but later it leads to decay and harm. Do you see how the same actions, because of the times, seem good, and then again not so?

Yes, and to wear a child’s robe is fine while you are a boy, but once you have become a man it is a disgrace. Would you like to learn from the opposite case too, how the things of a man are in turn unsuited to a child? Give the boy a man’s robe and there will be a great deal of laughter — and greater danger, since he will often trip walking in it. Let him handle public affairs, and trade, and sow and reap, and again there will be a great deal of laughter.

But why do I mention these things? Killing, which everyone admits is an invention of the evil one — killing, I say, once it found its proper occasion, caused Phinehas, who did it, to be honored with the priesthood. That killing is the work of the one I just mentioned, hear what Christ says: “You will do the works of your father; he was a murderer from the beginning.” But Phinehas became a killer, and “it was counted to him,” as he says, “for righteousness.” And Abraham, becoming not only a killer but — what was far worse — the killer of his own child, won more and more approval. And Peter too carried out a double slaying; nevertheless, what he did was of the Spirit.

So let us not examine the acts on their own, but the occasion too, and the causes, and the intention, and the difference of persons, and whatever else goes along with them. Let us search all these out with complete exactness, for there is no other way of arriving at the truth.

And if we want to attain the kingdom, let us work hard to show something more than the old commandments, since there is no other way to lay hold of the things of heaven. If we reach only the same measure as the ancients, we will stand outside that threshold; for “unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Yet although so heavy a threat has been laid down, there are some who, so far from going beyond this righteousness, even fall short of it. So far from avoiding oaths, they even swear falsely; so far from avoiding an unchaste look, they even fall into the wicked act itself. And all the other forbidden things they dare to do, as though they had lost all feeling, waiting for one thing only: the day of punishment, the time when they are to pay the utmost penalty for their misdeeds. [v]

Yet that is the lot only of those who have ended their lives in wickedness. They are the ones who have reason to despair, and from then on to expect nothing but punishment. But those who are still here may be able both to renew the fight and to conquer and be crowned with ease.

So do not lose heart, my friend, and do not lay aside your noble eagerness; for the things commanded really are not burdensome. What trouble is it, tell me, to avoid an oath? Does it cost any money? Does it take sweat and hardship? It is enough simply to will it, and the whole thing is done. But if you plead your habit with me, that is the very reason above all that I say doing right is easy for you. For if you bring yourself into a different habit, you have accomplished everything.

Consider, for example, how among the Greeks, in many cases, people who stammered have completely cured their halting tongues by long practice; while others, who had a habit of hitching up their shoulders in an unsightly way and kept jerking them, broke themselves of it by hanging a sword above them.

Since you are not persuaded by the Scriptures, I am forced to shame you by those outside. God did this too with the Jews, when he said, “Go out to the islands of Kittim, and send to Kedar, and learn whether nations will change their gods, though they are no gods.” And he often sends us to the animals as well, saying, “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and imitate her ways,” and “Go to the bee.” So I too say this to you now: consider the philosophers of the Greeks, and then you will know how great a punishment we deserve, who disobey the laws of God. For they took enormous pains for the sake of looking respectable before people, and you do not show the same diligence even for the things of heaven.

But you may reply: “Habit has an amazing power to lead astray even people who are very much in earnest.” I admit this too. But I say something else along with it: as it is powerful to lead astray, so too it is easy to correct. If at home you set many people over yourself to watch you — your servant, your wife, your friend — you will easily break off the bad habit, pressed hard and held in check by all of them. If you manage to do this for only ten days, you will need no more time after that; everything will be secured for you, rooted afresh in the firmness of the best of habits. So when you begin to correct this, even if you break your own rule a first time, a second, a third, a twentieth, do not despair. Get up again, take up the same diligence, and you will certainly win.

For perjury is surely no small evil. If swearing comes from the evil one, how great is the penalty that swearing falsely will bring! Are you applauding what I have said? No, I do not want applause, or uproar, or noise. I want only one thing: that you listen quietly and with understanding, and do what is said. That is the applause, that is the speech of praise for me. But if you praise what I say and do not do what you applaud, the punishment is greater and the charge heavier — and for us it is shame and ridicule.

For what goes on here is no theater show. You are not sitting now watching actors, just to applaud. This place is a spiritual school. That is why only one thing is aimed at here: to carry out properly the things that have been spoken, and to show our obedience by our actions. Only then will we have gained everything. As things are, to tell the truth, we have all but given up in despair. I have not stopped giving these warnings, both to those I meet in private and when I speak to all of you together. Yet I see no benefit gained at all; you are still clinging to those first crude beginnings, and that is enough to wear a teacher out.

Look, for example, at Paul himself, hardly able to bear it because his pupils were lingering so long over their first lessons: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers,” he says, “you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God.”

That is why we too mourn and lament. And if I see you persisting, I will forbid you from now on to set foot on this sacred threshold and to share in the immortal mysteries, as we do with the sexually immoral, and adulterers, and those charged with murder. Yes, it is better to offer our usual prayers with two or three who keep the laws of God than to sweep together a crowd of lawbreakers who corrupt others.

Let no rich man, no man of power, snort at me here and raise his eyebrows. All these things are to me a fable, a shadow, a dream. For not one of those who are rich now will stand up for me there, when I am called to account and accused of not having upheld the laws of God with all the earnestness they deserved. Yes, this, this is what ruined even that admirable old man. In his own life he gave no ground for blame; yet for all that, because he overlooked the trampling of God’s laws underfoot, he was punished along with his children and paid that grievous penalty. And if, where nature’s hold was so absolute, the man who failed to deal firmly enough with his own children suffered so grievous a punishment, what leniency will we find, who are free of that hold and yet ruin everything by flattery?

So that you may not destroy both us and yourselves along with us, be persuaded, I beg you. Set many people to watch over you and call you to account, and so free yourselves from the habit of oaths. Then, going on in good order from there, you may succeed with all ease in reaching every other virtue as well, and may enjoy the good things to come. May we all win them, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.